So the main thing that became the highlight of last Friday's cell group was some of the young ones discovering for the first time what the word "sodomy" entails! I blame David fully for this hahaha! We are in the midst of a Bible study on Genesis now, and David mentioned how the city Sodom eventually contributed to formation of the word sodomy. Now of course the older ones would know what that means, but the difficult part was trying to quell the young ones' curiosity because the more you tell them not to Google it, the more their curiosity is piqued and are dying to know! And when Federic eventually found out he wouldn't let me hear the end of it. The whole night was just laughter hahaha all the time and he kept wondering (although I am wondering if he is even wondering) why Lot wanted to choose to head towards the city of Sodom! How do you handle situations like this?! Hahaha I really didn't have the heart to tell him how Lot's life will eventually get a lot more juicier after the destruction of Sodom!

Okay that aside, I am really enjoying all the Saturday mornings at Serangoon Gardens teaching guitar to a few young children. I genuinely feel as though each Saturday is like the descent into the French quarter! Getting a glimpse of what French expatriate families do in Singapore on weekends. And I officially declare that it is no longer a guitar tuition class anymore! That's because I think I am actually enjoying myself much more than the little ones that I am teaching! I've been covering songs from Michael Jackson to Bob Marley to Taylor Swift, and I feel as though me playing these songs are so cathartic for me and I can no longer pretend that I am detached from whatever music I might be teaching. Really enjoy the sessions with all my students,  in part due to the great songs/music that we play hahaha.  

Chinese New Year is coming! Dad is back from the Philippines for a week or so. But anyway CNY has never been crazy bustling and travelling for me, because we don't do much visiting and I don't think a lot of people visit us too. Have not been surviving very well on irregular sleep, some nights I sleep like 10~12 hours and other nights 3~4 are sufficient. And don't think that this is very beneficial for me, but I'm trying to impose some sense of order into my sleep patterns. 

Plunging into the deep pool-end of the second week of school now, and I can't wait for the summer holidays, which won't really begin till May, and I might as well just sit here and cry because school just barely started and already I am dreading the days I have to go to school! Haha I totally understand it now when the secondary school people start whinging and whining about how they love the holidays so much and they don't want school to start. Quite evidently, I have no idea how I even pulled through so many years of primary and secondary and JC education myself. Not much recollection of those times heh. 

And I've got my full timetable, earliest days are Tuesdays 9am, which I foresee a lot of problems trying to wake up for that class! Nope, the problem is not to be on time for it, it is to WAKE UP for it. I think I might just conveniently sleep through it and waking up much later like 10 or 11am and realising that the lesson is already half over. But I shall be optimistic and sleep early on Monday nights (which I am not doing now hahahaha) and be a good student. And apart from that, the other trivia is that I am taking my third module under Dr Gilbert Yeoh, which is even more than my Geography profs haha because Geog is so much more diverse and they have more teachers for everything else. But I am thankful that I chose Literature as my minor, because I get to read fiction books in an actual school term, and I have a legit "excuse" to read books. Although this is a huge price because finishing 5-7 novels in four months have never been possible for me and it's no wonder that I have never ever completed the full reading list for all my Lit modules. There's usually some room to skip one or two novels haha. 

Okay that said, I am trying my best to clock some mileage for the second half-marathon of my life. Registered for Sundown marathon last week and I am determined to improve my 3h11m time! 

Yes school has started, and for most parts of it I am still in my own dreamland haha I am trying to give myself a bit of buffer between holidays and the start of school. But obviously that is not theoretically possible without incurring some form of academic debt. Already I am ankle-deep in readings and assignments, and if I do not snap out of holiday mood soon enough, I will be spending the rest of the weeks sleepless again and playing catch-up while at the same time trying to complete every single assignment on time.

Have been running as many errands as I could too, for now that is. There were one or two parcels to send, and things to buy, and so many things to do and to settle before the term gets properly underway and then I will have no time to devote attention to it anymore. Time time time. This is all about time management. Perhaps one of the more alarming things I've done all week is squander away all my free time in school eating and sleeping and lazing around. Haha and this is quite substantial, considering I've had various 2-hour breaks and a 4-hour one today. But on another note, I've managed to sell away most of my old textbooks and notes! Young entrepreneur award for me. 

Kinda realized just that I have been travelling quite a fair bit all over Singapore in the past week, rather tired of going out of house all the time almost everyday but holidays are ending! Quite glad for the chance to get out and do something for the remnants of the holidays, wished that it was longer but of course it will not be. And I have gotten all the modules that I want for this semester, it is going to be crazy and mad hectic. Whoever I meet, please nag at me to study and finish all my readings and assignments on time! Am doing two modules with no exams, which means that the continual assessments are my only shot at the two modules. And I do aim to score well this semester! Have no idea how it will be done, what with my constant distractions from studying (which I gladly indulge in haha). 

But anyway, I'm happy for the many rests and breaks that I have, or at least I think I've had. Like SAY service last night I was vaguely scheduled to play/sing, but I was helping out with sound only and it is refreshing, because I'm usually on the stage for such occasions. It's a reminder to myself that I'm old and I need to let it go and give it to others. Heh probably the greatest satisfaction I get is people claiming how good the guitar/vocalist/whoever/whatever sounds, because I am indirectly part of the final sound output and I channel the compliment indirectly to myself. Hahaha but yeah I think I wanna go for courses on sound, have been doing rentals for a while now, but never was formally trained, and even though it kinda sounds good to me, I want to at least be doing the right professional things. 

And I'm continuing the meet-up with friends thingy, was out with a large group of people just now because Amelia is flying off to Sweden for studies exchange, and in the process Tammy is going back too. It's a proper catch-up with Tammy because she vaporized from my life and then distance and absence means kaput, so I seriously have no idea what is going on in her life now and she doesn't with mine too. 

Last thing before I call it a night. I am finished with the entire Twilight series, book 1 to book 4! Very big thank you to Si Xuan for lending me all the books and for motivating me to finish reading it. For the literature student in me I think the writing is soooo tween and I cannot handle such laconic simplicity in diction and practically no stylistic features at all, especially after I did Charles Dickens and Emily Bronte and many others last year. It's like huge declining drop haha. But okay the story is very exciting! AND AND AND. Given that I am not some hot-blooded girl into romance genre, I think I did pretty well heh the book is totally for teenage girls. To be honest I'm reading it so that it gives me a fragment of something tangible in that aspect to connect with girls that age, but not that Si Xuan is that kind she is weirded out that the characters have *** hahaha. But I think I need this exposure, mightily glad that I made it through even though I really rolled my eyes so many times in the process. 

So far the new year has not been heralded with much fanfare, there were no fireworks and no wheezing sparklers and no confetti. Rather, it's been rather lazy and laid-back, I am trying to read a lot of articles on the internet and read some books here and there and a lot of magazines. And I did have the opportunity to meet up with friends that I have not seen in a while! And in the process exploring new cafes that are quaint and homely and great places to chill. Yesterday was with Khairul, because he is flying to Paris next week for about 4 months and I had to pass him some of the guide books that I inherited from my last trip there. And he suggested Loysel's somewhere in Kallang, have never been there before but the coffee is great! Today was with Linus, whom I have to be dreadfully honest and declare that this is the first time I am meeting him in like 5 years I think, and prior to the meeting I thought he was going to try and sell me insurance or some MLM scheme, because he asked me out first! But nope, great catch-up at Group Therapy (on Dora's recommendation because she works there but wasn't in today), we couldn't run out of topics to talk about, and I am really glad that I took the efforts to travel out to meet him. Usually I would kinda just decline or claim that I'm busy, because I am not the best catch-up conversationalist, but I shall endeavour to try more and ask more long-time-no-see friends out. And yup it's been quite a while since my blog posts are only one paragraph long, although it is a rather long paragraph. So it ends right here. 

In the vein of thought for the annual end-of-year writing as I reflect for the past year! Usually I try to churn this out before the year ends, but kinda left it a wee bit late this year and I am writing this on the first day of  the new year 2012! Okay second day, because it is past midnight now and I have to observe the temporal technicalities. In any case, this year-end weekend has been the busiest by far of all the years, because I took on Friday service and Saturday watchnite service concurrently, and then somewhere in between there was a wedding rental, and the traditional stayover in church culminated with the tallest order possible: to stay awake throughout Sunday service the next day! The calendar for this year-end and year-beginning is not really in favour of church services haha because New Year is on Sunday and that means watchnite is curtailed. But youth watchnite went ahead!

And I am so mightily glad that everything went well this weekend and that I am really really sane and energetic in the times that I need to be energetic! In debt to the worship teams and to the leaders who assisted me. And somehow I think we should just do our own youth watchnites from now on haha, or just convert one Friday into watchnite testimonies, because the amount of thanksgiving and praises is really staggering. Really uplifting and encouraging to hear of all the good things and how God is always in the business of transforming people's lives and growing them for his sake.

And I've already compartmentalized it nicely into home and church, and rewriting it here even though I've already shared my testimony haha, this is for future years' references and also to reflect somemore! First category is home, which I have to say is a complete upheaval this year because of all the changes and activity. Most immediate and most recent is the house renovation! We decided to renovate the kitchen and toilets and then repaint the whole house and get new furniture about three months ago, and after spending time in a rented apartment and then having to endure all the shifting and packing and repacking, I am really glad that it is all dust-free now and I shifted my bed into the study room. And unpacking was the most annoying because they kinda just threw all my stuff into many boxes and I didn't know what was where and I never knew I had this many unnecessary things lying around. I'm going to be as zen as I can from now on and not hoard unnecessary things!

Biggest change to the family is that dad decided to quit his Sentosa job of many years and relocate to the Philippines to work there permanently. I can't quite imagine the amount of thought and deliberation that he probably went through to come to this decision, but just want to thank God that everything worked fine. It really forces me to appreciate my family even more, and with all the floods and storms and typhoons to the Philippines past few months, it really is a blessing my dad is safe and generally not so affected. My dad is officially now a trans-migrant worker, haha which is really weird because I study about it in geography in school and I never thought now that my family will one day fall trap into the migration patterns due to my dad's work and all. We sometimes do migration topics in our geog modules, and I sort of better understand now the strains of maintaining a long-distance relationship. The funniest was when my sister and my mum went overseas too, which meant I was home alone and four of us were in three different locations in the world and we were Facetiming each other at different times. Truly transnational haha.

On the church front, I am still doing what I am doing with the Sec 1 and 2s, which to me is still as much a rewarding process as it was when I first started. Cannot really believe that it is my fourth year now, and quite literally watching some of the first few people whom I first took on now graduated from secondary school and no longer quite the same as when I first knew them. Haha and this year is significant, because it was the start of new cell groups! Previously it really felt like it was just adding on and on, each year bringing more people and then they all burgeon and nobody ever really leaves. This year was one where I could start everything fresh, and with Tim and Meng Ren coming along, with Jolene, all of whom have been beyond wonderful and beyond amazing. Owe it all to them, and I really would not have achieved anything without their help. Cell group is always something that I treasure above my other ministries in church, and I am really glad for all the opportunities to minister to them and be their friend. Amazed at how God has placed me headlong into this, and really thankful that it is making a difference! I can quite literally go at length for each cell member and how it is such a honour and a privilege to be a part of their lives, and it is a different story for each one of them and mere words can't quite do it justice.

Once again grateful for the many other opportunities to serve in other areas too, like sharing short messages or mini-sermons, Gracehaven, worship leading, camps, logistics... List can go on quite endlessly but I believe the work is never completed, and that is why there is always work and more work, too many things to do before Christ comes again haha. In particular, for my Malaysian trips this year, which is not my first time but is still just as strong a conviction that Salvation Army is really doing something right. The children homes in Malaysia is really very different from Gracehaven in Singapore, and each time I meet those friends that I've made over the years, I am astounded by their faith and their unwavering passion. I've got more people I know from different parts of Malaysia now, haha can't wait for the next opportunity to go up and catch up with them again. Thank God for the anointing too each time I take to the stage for worship leading, or to preach, and am eternally grateful for the chance to lead each time. And thank God too for new gifts, for developing me so suddenly in the aspect of mercy seat ministering, and also for my first forays into Sunday School and children's ministry!

All in all 2011 has been a really blessed year, and I think this post has been long enough, and I am sleepy enough too. Need to get enough rest to recuperate from the after-effects of staying over at church. Okay this is as abrupt as it can be, but I need sleep and I need it now. 

A snap decision and a really foolhardy endeavour led me to take care of all aspects of the youth service tonight! From leading worship to sharing message and the prayer sessions and everything. Usually I try to do just one thing and not take up any other things, because it has usually been disastrous past few attempts because I cannot sustain that level of energy to focus on more than one major thing haha. But tonight was good, so thankful that I pulled through everything without muddling anything up and that I was still coherent and sane enough towards the end! Thankful for as many as three different lozenges from different sources that helped my throat, grateful for the encouragements, and so eternally in debt to the wonderful worship team that made all the difficult songs sound easy on one seamless try.

Right before today's service, there was a 2-day worship ministry retreat which just about took out all the energy from everyone, which made tonight's service an even more herculean effort for everyone involved. According to Cheryl it's the first time we've ever had a retreat on this scale where there are group practices and instrument sectionals and Bible studies for a full two days. But what strikes me more is how the next-generation band is so compelling and so skilled! Remarkably, a lot of them are still beginners and still undergoing lessons, and it is really amazing to listen to them put together a song decently. And I think I've officially reached my sell-by date in youth worship team haha, everything is taken care of by the younger leaders and I am only hanging around at the retreat because I'm trying to find something to do, like oven-heat pizzas for lunch and praying for them and guiding guitars when they're probably more capable than they think they are.

All in all, past week has been absolutely great, and really thankful for all the opportunities to reach out and make a difference somewhere. 

So Christmas came and left, and this time it was right smack in the weekends! Which meant that there were more engagements, more parties to attend, more stuff to do. Haha I speak as if I was planning a tonne of activities for Christmas, but nope! This Christmas was really just relax and enjoy and attend and soak in all the peace and joy. Partly because I was having reservist right up to Christmas, which meant that I eschewed away from a lot of things haha. And really, this weekend has been one of the better Christmases that I remember of, maybe I need to do this more often heh take more breaks. There's caroling this year, we went down to Beo Crescent one-room flats to sing and deliver food parcels to them, which is always easily one of the more meaningful things to do for me because it really is getting down and dirty to the ground. It is one thing to go visit all the families I know from church and sing carols at their gatherings, but I can't think of any other more purposeful reason than to bring Christmas into people less fortunate than us. Haha and there were parties and gatherings here and there, which kinda completed the many activities over Christmas.

But one thing kinda remains the same every year, I think. After Christmas service in the morning, we have the usual gift exchanges flurry and everyone goes around being Santa and receiving presents from another Santa at the same time. And after all that has been completed, we always always always struggle to find things to do! Going home seemed quite inappropriate given that it's Christmas, but going out to hang out runs out of ideas after a while because there quite simply isn't anything much to do haha. One of the great mysteries of Christmas afternoon, that it is always so bleh.

I have a few days before I need to start bidding for my modules for next year's new semester, and I'm making the most of it by going out and trying to do as many things I can in the mean time before I'm trapped by the school cycle again, really not looking forward to readings and assignments and essays and presentations again! Feeling as if the holidays weren't long enough, and rightly so because there was reservist. Haha oh well will make do! 

So the sudden random activity for the night is to head down all the way to Changi airport to welcome the return of Joelynn, whose birthday also happened to be today! She was away in Thailand for a church mission trip, and a group of us decided to surprise her with an unexpected audience at the arrival gates and sing happy birthday for her. Then somehow along the way, we discovered that Meng Ren and his family was arriving back from Turkey tonight too! He told me he will only be back on the 23rd but it obviously turned out much earlier. And both the flights were like about 15 minutes apart from each other, and a few gates in between. Which meant that it was absolutely convenient for us to hop over from one arrival gate to another in a flash.

Other news include the many breaking-downs of the MRT system! I have not been affected much perfectly, but I do notice that it does take slightly longer travelling times due to the slow speed. More importantly, I am very upset at the way SMRT handles the whole debacle! You can't just "sorry" after everything has already happened, and then advising people to take alternative transport has got to be the most ludicrous joke. So we are all to find rocket boosters, or we need to grow wings, or we need to travel on horses and cows. Their PR skills are really very very poor, and don't see how this justifies the fare increases we always have to pay.

Okay, time to get to bed. 

I think I'm getting really rusty with worship leading haha. Okay this morning may not be the best example to quote because there were simply too many songs! The brass band is away in Myanmar, God bless them im their ministry whatever they are doing right now, think they are comig back tomorrow. And I honestly cannot remember when was the last time I led worship on Sunday morning! So nervous and incoherent and then I don't know what to play on lead guitar either. Inexperienced hahaha.

Anyway, updates on my life include my attempts to try to read the Twilight series! I'm currently on the first book, the writing isn't exactly the most readable to me hahaha it might be more appealing to a young teenage girl, but I'm forcing myself to plough it through for the sake of connecting with girls at that young teenage age! It's sappy romantic and vampires and werewolves. Hmmmmmm.

The week came and went so quickly, that I barely had time to register what was happening all the time! And it's a good week, because I managed to complete like 90% of my Christmas shopping and cards and presents. I'm opting to go mass gifts this year for everyone except cell group, whom I always feel more at liberty to spend more for their presents because they are my cell group after all! And managed to get out for a cell outing with them yesterday, we were cycling at East Coast and then came back to church for movies. Today was lunch with the mentees and then Starbucks kettling, which I kinda think was one of the best experiences for this Christmas! Not saying that I had nasty encounters previous years, but we did at Citylink mall and the Starbucks staff were super nice and friendly to work with. Yes I am spending a lot of time with Tyrus and Si Xuan this week haha they are like here almost every week somewhere in my life.

Tomorrow is the beginning of a two-week reservist stint, will still get to come out quite a bit I think, but can't help but think how reluctant I am to go because it is taking up my holidays time haha.

Okay gotta get to bed! 

This is the first blog post typed on iPad! My mum just got a new one and I've been fiddling with it for the past week, haha feels no different from an iPhone except that it's ostensibly much bigger. Anyway, Kids Games is finally over! And I have to say that I have quite a deeper appreciation of what children's ministry is like now. So apart from the first day which was kinda disastrous because I was like some fish out of water, the subsequent two days were much much better because over time you sort of know how to manage each of them and the things that make them excited or will frustrate them. Happy for a new experience and a new way of approaching ministry! Now I tell my cell group about all the horror stories of the children misbehaving and I threaten them "don't be like Kids Games!" hahaha not the best approach but considering that my cell is just one or two years after Sunday School, it kinda works hahaha.

So it being children's ministry, they have a points system for each group which they constantly use to motivate all of them. I am mildly amused whenever one of the teachers award like 2000 points each for all groups, because it kinda seems senseless to me as everyone will just be on the same level! Then might as well don't give if there's no inequality right. Hahaha but each time they earn points, they cheer like crazy, even if all groups get the same points. And all the denominations are huge and inflated, haha I don't even think they understand how much a thousand is, they just like to feel great that they have so many points. And one thing I really wish the same for youth ministry is the level of enthusiasm that all the children have towards games! The games team announces that we are going to play captain's ball, and all of them just yayyyy! It's never like this in youth.

Anyway enough of that, happy for the new friends made (although they very young) and had lots of fun, although I'm left really tired. So it was with quite a lot of trepidation that my lack of sleep this past week will end up affecting me today! Today was the Standard Chartered marathon, I did the half marathon instead of running the full. Quite an experience, because I have never ran anything more than 12km or 13km in my life. Even when I was in army, I missed both years of the Army Half Marathon because of guard duty both years! But anyway it was a great personal achievement, glad I finished even though I was walking most of it haha and I finished in three hours. It can be something that I will consider doing again! But for now my legs are absolutely aching and I am super sleepy. They said there will be energy gels and bananas, but apparently the half-marathon is second-rate to the full, because I didn't see any gels or bananas at all. And we only got our 100 plus after the 12km water point, whereas the full marathon had it at EVERY water point. Bah still a great experience nonetheless, didn't really train for this but ahhh I did it!

Oh my it's 6am now and I just woke up out of nowhere, I have at least another hour of sleep to grab before I need to get up and prepare for Kids Games, but shall document this blog post first heh. My thoughts could do with this mulling in blogosphere haha. So yesterday's first foray into children's ministry was not the best of the best experiences. I've done some stuff with my Sunday School before, but now thinking back, I realized that those activities were mostly stuck at the upper primary levels. We've had those adopt-a-kid thingy at JC where we bring little ones all around the school, but it's just not the same when it comes to church ministry. And the reason why I thought I had such a difficult time yesterday was because I really really don't know what to do with so many 6-year-olds, and a handful of 7s and 8s and 9s and 10s blah. Haha maybe it's because I've been so comfortable in youth ministry, and to approach children so young is inherently a much different experience altogether. 

Then again it could be because I got a trying group, truth be told they each are angels and the cutest soft toys ever, but then they get excited and refuse to sit down and keep quiet and run around everywhere. And partly because I'm not a disciplinarian, I always think that if I do become a teacher and they put me as the discipline master, all hell will break loose in the school because I really wouldn't know how to be firm and scold all the time! Okay la it's really heartwarming when you see them put effort into the crafts they are doing or the games they are playing, and then out of nowhere they cling to you and ask you to be their partner and want to sit beside you and hold your hand everywhere they go, but these are all the fine and fluffy things the moment they start to quarrel and get frustrated and cry and refuse to listen ugh. Maybe it's just my group la haha I had crazy temperamental ones, but yeah I seriously think we came in last in all the games because they don't like to cooperate as a team. Not like I think they really care about winning hahaha they just want to have fun. But it becomes a little demoralizing for me and I am so tired of trying to manage them. 

Okay today is day 2, and hope that it is a better day! Seriously lacking sleep, aftermath of exams. 

I am done with exams! On the overall this has gotta be one of the more easy-going semesters in the two plus three years that I've been at university. The reading requirements are a lot less demanding than previous years, because the modules that I took this semester just somehow happened to be that way. As a result I am reading more novels and plays and poetry this semester instead of boring dissertation papers or scholarly journal articles. And one of the modules was a 100% continual assessment, which meant no final exams for that module! And another was a MCQ which I could afford to not place much attention to. But still, studying took its toll and assignments were horribly late. Anyway the semester is over! 

Just about the most dramatic that happened was that I mistook my exam dates! I thought that the last two papers that I was supposed to sit for was on Tuesday, but it turned out to be on Wednesday instead. Thankfully it was not after the paper is over that I realize I missed it! But anyway that gave me an unexpected extra day to study. Haha now to look forward to Kids Games for the next three days, and then I have a half-marathon to run on Sunday. Instantaneously busy the moment exams end. 

In the middle of exams period now, have finished two papers and still have two remaining next Tuesday before I am a free bird. But immediately right after is Kids Games and a whole lot of other things on the to-do list to complete, because I have report back for reservist middle of December and that's like most of the vacation gone. Heh oh well busy busy.

And thankful for all the people who always volunteer to buy food, or run errands for me when I'm studying in church! My revision progress is real slow but at least I am studying haha I'm close to just throwing it all up in the air and go into exam hall cooking up some balmy storm.

Have a half-marathon to run next Sunday, and I'm totally not prepared for it. They say try to aim to at least attempt 60~70% of the required distance as part of preparation, but I didn't do anything more than 7km this whole month except for tonight with Coleman. Aching muscles and dead tired. How to study.

Okay last thing, happy for my cell and the way they are growing. Getting out with them more because it's holidays, hahaha at the expense of revision but I will make up for it somewhere. And glad for all the opportunities to communicate with the Pri 6s this year, because I kinda think it's gonna be one of the smoothest transitions I'll have ever. They are calling my uncle =(

Another half an hour till my birthday, and I am sitting here being dubious about my age! Hahaha 2011 minus away 1988 is 23 right??? I am 23 this year right? Haha not saying that I am the oldest person alive, but I feel old and I fall into the category of twenty-somethings trying to find a job and get married and start a family. But that's not going to happen till another couple of years when I graduate from university and bam here we go into being fully adult, assuming that I'm all ready to marry.

Anyway, it really didn't feel like the eve of my birthday, truth be told I wasn't even keeping track until mid-day today. And if I were to use a hackneyed and trite word, it would have to be "surreal" because I really think this whole waiting-for-your-birthday thing is very surreal. My birthday is just another day, that's what I always say. But when I'm actually waiting for it to happen it really is very surreal. So this post represents my last gasps at being 22 and grasping at air to stay relevant concurrent ebullient.

Oh and while I'm at that. Today I realized that I will be taking on my 5th batch of Sec 1 youths starting next year. Have been trying to form communications with them since middle of this year, trying to find out who are the little children that will terrorize me next year. I've been trying to catch them after Sunday service or whatever, got to know some of them closer at the Pri 6 camp a while back... But I told myself the work won't really begin until they get hold of my email or phone number or Facebook and start having sustained conversations with me. Today Auntie Christina told me they are telling everyone to sign up for Kids Games because Uncle Guan You will be there too! I am happy for the former news, but not the latter! What Uncle Guan You!! And with that I caught one or two of them on chat. Uh oh it's been 5 years and I barely counted. Half a decade.

Okay 20 minutes to go now. 

This post simply has to be written, and I will not do it justice if I do not say it as it is. You can view this as a mini-continuation post from two or three days ago, which I mentioned somewhere that I was asked to lead worship at Balestier Corps new building opening ceremony. So yup, leading worship isn't something new for me hahaha, I've done it enough times to know what to do, and it's almost as if it were routine? Heh I think that's the danger of doing something too many times, that ministry becomes formulaic and form without substance. Of course I try really hard not to fall into a rut, each opportunity to serve God through worship leading or sharing the message or anything, I really hope something special will happen and I put in my best. 

But I gotta confess slightly, I kinda remembered going into this Balestier worship not focusing fully on what I need to focus on. Partly because it was a very busy weekend with other worship leading AND message sharing engagements AND incomplete essays, so in all honesty Balestier was not high on the priority list. And then we had to have worship prac without a drummer because Spencer will be late, but I had very very good musicians who agreed to play for me, so much so that I remembered this specific prayer thanking God for blessing me with a team of musicians that are much more experienced than I am! And we kinda headed into the actual worship with only half an hour of rushed practice with the full team, without much clue what to do or where to go with each song. Onstage into worship I really don't really remember much of what happened, but I know it just kinda reached automatic pilot mode because the songs were familiar and it didn't rely on me to get to where I needed it to go, it was all natural and flowing. And coming off it wasn't too difficult either, I was nervous to close and couldn't wait to get off haha. 

Sooo, long-winded story aside, I was very very surprised after everything ended, Rachael from Balestier's youth came up to me and suggested that we should have a inter-corps worship exchange, because they all thought that our music style was really different and more importantly, they really felt God through the worship. That put me in a huge fix, because I didn't have the heart to tell her that as far as I knew, it was pretty normal to us! But a few days later I received another affirmation from Didi, this time from Twitter, that Sunday was great and God was there. I'm like, someone please teach me how to respond humbly to compliments because I will just pooh-pooh it because it's always human tendency to beat yourself down and say nahhh not me laaaa. But the third and most recent was last evening, when Meena agreed that Balestier felt like it was a youth camp, and His presence could really be felt because it was like a combined service but strictly was really not? Haha and in part due to the games too, which I was happily jumbling up people's shoes. 

But there you go, three confirmations and three different times from three different sources. It doesn't get clearer than this, if I continue to ignore this, the next thing that God needs to do to show me something is to throw some lightning bolts at where I am currently sitting and jolt me into action. But it's just amazing to me how something that I think is so unworthy can be transformed into something that others perceive as brilliance or magnificence or splendour of God. I didn't seek out to transform lives when I headed into Balestier, and I think it really isn't up to me to decide what God wants to do with this jars of clay. I look back now and kinda wished that I put in more effort into this or into that, hahaha but I don't think it would have made much difference if God hadn't been the one to transform. I'm just so thankful and so blessed to be a part of this, and it needs somewhere a miracle to convince me otherwise that that Balestier evening was not a special kiss from heaven. 

Recently I've been catching colds far more often than I should! And it's quite bad, because there are mornings when I wake up and I thought that it was just the occasional sinus attack, but it goes on for the whole day and degenerates into terrible sneezing bouts and headaches and leaky nose. Don't know what's wrong with my nose and I try not to aggravate it. I think the doctors will probably tell me that it's something to do with dust or some mild allergy. But no point for me to worry about dust mites because I'm living in a rented apartment now anyway haha, and this problem has been around even before I shifted. Gaargh. 

And I try my best not to depend on my antihistamine medicines too much, because I don't want to develop some drug immunity due to excessive or frequent medication. Haha or can someone tell me that this fear is not founded in concrete medical proof? Whichever way it is, I try to delay medication as long as I can, and hoping that the cold will just go away on its own. But more often than not, it kinda worsens. 

And and and and! I wanna gripe about the antihistamine medicine that I've been taking regularly! I am allergic to paracetamol, so I need to be very careful with medicine haha. I switched from the usual chlorpheniramine tablets to Clarinase about 3 to 4 years ago, I think it was due to one afternoon when I desperately needed medication and someone just got me Clarinase from the pharmacy. But anyway, they bill themselves as non-drowsy and fast relief, but each time I take it, I fall into some stupor and everything gets groggy! So much for non-drowsy!! Anyway Clarinase used to be those 4 to 6-hour tablets, so the effect kinda wears off within that time frame after you get well. But last year they've switched it to 24-hour extended release tablets, which means that the drug effect slowly releases its medication over 24 hours! Which means each time I take one of those stupefacient pills, my reflexes slow and my speech slurs and I don't think properly, for about one whole day. Nonsense la what non-drowsy??? It makes me want to sleep each time! 

I think Auntie Adeline used to always tell me that all these non-drowsy flu tablets are all a lie, because when you are sick you just have to rest and recuperate in order to recover. Most of the time I cave in to the drowsiness, because I really cannot take it hahaha I don't want to fight the fatigue. And mostly I wake up feeling much better, and I'm thinking this isn't any different if I had continued with my chlorpheniramine medication! That one is a sure potent drowsy-inducing sleep pill, I take one and I need a bed within half an hour. And Clarinase obviously does not keep me awake, I'm just hesitant and reluctant to switch medication. Haha alright I need to go back to sleep, Clarinase is in extended release. 

The weekend was arguably one of the busiest and craziest for the entire year. There were some hall rentals on Friday, led worship at Balestier on Saturday, Pri 6 / Sec 2 graduation and Gracehaven worship and sharing the message on Sunday, all amidst two 2000-word essays that were due on Monday! Okay I really really left it very late, because I was busy with other things and I was trying to get some semblance of exam revision started, which kinda ended up neglecting the essays to focus on all the other things. But I have to say, every single one of the weekend programme went well, and I'm thankful that all the essays are finished and done.

Glad that Balestier Corps finally shifted to their new building, and celebrating their 75th! Haha not that I desperately wanted them to get out from our church building, but kinda think it's rather befitting that they get their own building, with new equipment and everything! Will miss having the Balestier people around every weekend. I'm so used to meeting all of them every Sunday and that's the weekly catch-up. And of course, it was a privilege for me to play for worship in a couple of their services, and having them around so often that it is almost taken for granted. But yeah, Balestier is not far from Bishan haha.

And glad that Gracehaven was great, it was my first time sharing the message there, and I keep going on about how it is really quite different when I first started leading worship there. Because all the old old people that I know have mostly discharged from the home, and the newer people I have only interacted on limited occasions. But I still think that it is very important to go in and support, because you just have to start somewhere from Salvation Army's social services. And grateful for all the opportunities.

Elsewhere, my house which was undergoing renovation, it is 80% completed now, but we are repainting the whole house so it will still take a while. And Dad's back from Philippines for a couple of weeks. Okay, gotta study for exams in the coming week, I need to tear myself away from all the distractions. 

I'm seriously procrastinating and taking my time to complete these two remaining essays. Yes aargh just when I thought I was done with the mad slew of assignments two or three weeks ago, I still have two major ones due on 14th November. And probably why I am not really getting down to serious work is because, well, there's still another ten days! It's the first time all term that I actually started early and didn't leave it till like 48 hours before the time deadline to start work haha. The downside is just that I don't have any urgency and no strong impetus to get it done at all, and I highly suspect it will just remain mulling and milling without writing itself for the next few days.

Elsewhere, there are a few things that I need to keep in mind so that I have ample time to complete my assignments on time and also to begin some semblance of revision for final term exams. Balestier Corps is shifting back to Balestier, sharing for Gracehaven, Pri 6 graduation, and possibly some more stuff which I can't recall offhand. November will probably be crazy, and I'm only at the beginning of the month.