Yep it was my birthday yesterday, and I am super thankful to everyone who have sent my greetings one way or another. Although I think 97% of the people I know do not read this blog, because I think nobody really has the time to keep up with blogs everyday now haha. So if you're the 3% reading this, you have my sincerest gratitude! 

I am 24 now, and have gone two full cycles of with the lunar calendar dragon (I'm a dragon)! Or in other forms of lingo, I am a complete two-dozen of age, or four and a score. I think I am immensely old, but then some middle-aged uncle in church will pooh-pooh me and say I'm at the prime of my life. And then I will possibly meet some elderly auntie with very gray hair and I will just keep quiet about my age. But I only feel old in relation to my cell group, because the Sec 1s next year will be dragon babies too, and that means I am a full 12-year cycle older than them! Don't quite know how I am to deal with that hahaha. 

But birthday was great. I was going around all the restaurants and shops asking for my birthday special, if any. I think it is the only day in the whole year where I am actually allowed to ask for that, so why shy and pretend that it's not my birthday when I am possibly missing out on all these discounts! And you will be surprised at some of the birthday promotions that you are entitled to, some of it are really great, but requires you to be shameless. Other forms of celebrations include replying "happy birthday" when people greet me with "happy birthday", because well, it seems to be the same when people say "Merry Christmas" and you reply back with "Merry Christmas" too! 

A year older. 

Back from a youth leaders' training camp, and I cannot shake off the feeling that I've been doing this too frequent and too often. I think I have been staying over at William Booth Retreat Centre at least once a year for the past four or five years, each time for various retreats or camps or workshops. Which is well, quite a surreal experience, because I have no idea why I am committing myself to another two years of youth leadership when it is probably time for me to pass it on. 

This coming year will be my 6th year in a row doing the Sec 1 & 2 ministry. And possibly 9th or 10th year in total for leadership?! Haha too much for too long, but I will always remember the humbling experience at Hillsong Conference earlier this year when I met this woman who was in her 40s, and she says she has been doing youth ministry for the past 25 years. That's even longer than my life put together. And her three-word advice to me was to "keep it fun". Couldn't disagree with that haha. 

And with extreme irony, Celine will be my co-cell leader next year. She was in my first ever Sec 1 & 2 cell five years back, and I seem to be forever co-leading with people who were once in my cell when they were teeny teens (hello Jolene), but have somehow transformed from that cocoon into more-than-leaders in their own rights. I don't quite know how God does it, but if I ever need encouragement when I think my work isn't sowing the right seeds and reaping the right harvest, I talk to my co-cell leaders. Somehow, it all just adds up. 

This weekend's highlight involved engaging in a new activity/hobby! I happily signed up for a floral arrangement class about two weeks ago, when the women's ministries in my church announced that they are hiring someone in to teach a one-off session. Partly because I have always been super encouraged by the team of ladies who does our floral offering for Sunday service every week. They rotate themselves on a roster and come in every Saturday afternoon cooped up in the servery, and it can take as long as two hours!

I have to confess that I always thought floral arrangement very easy. I just have to snip the flowers and then decide what arrangement I want then poke it into the sponge, hahaha quite easy wad! But it seems like everytime I thought it looked nice, one of the aunties will walk by and "Guan You! So messy!", and then they pluck out everything I've poked in and rearrange for me. Auntie Charlotte gave me the best advice haha she attended many classes before, and she will tell me that the tallest apex flower need not be the prettiest because no one really looks that high up, so you should put the more "uglier" flowers not-yet-bloomed as the apex. And then there's symmetries and asymmetries in every shape and design! Haha completely astounded. By the way I was one of only two males there (the other was Uncle Patrick), and this is essentially part of my movement to show that floral arrangement need not always carry sexist connotations!

Pictures!!

Step 1: Have a good base foliage with the roses as the general triangular shape.

Step 2: Put in the centrepieces

Step 3: Touch up and tadaa!

This was the one the teacher did in 45 mins. It is a lot taller than this picture made it to be, with the torch ginger flowers really magnificent and with brassica flowers (the purple ones). But what I liked about this best was the three leaves sticking out at the back, it's quite funny but it's so suave!

I think I left with a deeper understanding of floral arrangement, more than just snip and poke! It seems like no matter how I arrange it, the teacher's own arrangement always looks nicer than mine! There is a technique here, and it does take a creative eye to visualize the patterns. I do hope this is not my last class! 

So today during service, I was asked an interesting question midway sermon. Rebecca asked "why was Jesus male and not a female". Haha truth be told, the first thing that I was sorely tempted to say was this small little joke that I always use as an icebreaker. It goes something similar, like "why is God referred to as he and not a she", and the answer is because we sing hymns (hims) and not herms hahaha. Okay I know it's not the best thing around, but it helps me to get the lightheartedness to where I need it to go, and people do generally laugh at it okay!

So yeah, I digress. Why was Jesus male. I thought for a moment and realized that in the patriarchal society that Jesus lived in, he probably wouldn't have gained much currency if he was a female! No one will listen to him (or her, for that matter), and no one will take him seriously, and persecution for a heretical female will be even more outright madness than a heretical male (which some already deemed him to be). Read somewhere too that Jesus' timing was always perfect, like he was in the right place at the right time. And even subsequent events after his resurrection, such as the gospel being written in Greek helped it to become widely circulated and read because it was the lingua franca of the Roman empire. So I kinda believe that Jesus has got to be male for some reason.

But then Rebecca being Rebecca, she asked further on why the Salvation Army song that we always sing "they shall come from the east they shall come from the west and sit down in the kingdom of God", why does it not include north and south! To which I have no idea really, and it was one of those Gowans and Larsson song, of which they probably wrote so many. So I googled, and they did give me a verse each from Luke 13:29 and Matthew 8:11. Funny thing was, the Luke reference had all four north south east west, but Matthew reference only had east and west! And being a Geography student this kind of thing annoys me when I can't find the answer, because I think directional references are very important haha.

Help please!!!

Every two months or so, I get the privilege to lead the Sec 1 and 2 Christian Education class on Sundays. I try to structure my lessons to ensure that it maximizes attention and imparts something at the same time, because they lose focus very easily! I try to do a lot of drawing or descriptive stuff or taking a walk to MacDonald's while reciting the Zacchaeus story hahaha. Anyway for today, I got my inspiration from a book title (which is yet to be published though) to fill in the blank "Jesus is _____". The whole point was to make Jesus a lot more personal to every individual, and it really is anything goes! It can be an adjective, like "Jesus is awesome", but it can also be verbs like "Jesus is carrying me". And youth being youth I was kinda hoping for crazy answers like "Jesus is not emo" or "Jesus is better than noobs" or "Jesus is rolling his eyes at what I think I should be doing instead of doing what God thinks I should be doing", you know crazy stuff like that I came up with which sounds cool! But nah, it didn't quite cut through today, haha they thought it was too kiddy. But still, it was quite fun to get some of their responses, after much cajoling!

Some of what I received:

"Jesus is like magic"

"Jesus is like Avengers" 

"Jesus is a man"

"Jesus is a name" 

Which wasn't too bad I guess, and it actually is quite biblical if I wrangle it! Because Jesus is fully man and fully God, and Jesus is name above all names, and his miracles are cooler than magic hahaha. I mean, it's a bit too weird and too contemporary to situate Jesus outside of New Testament times, but I think that if I cannot make Jesus relate to me right this time and this place now, then the whole point of a relationship in Christ is kinda meaningless isn't it? So yup, if Jesus is like the Avengers, then he is really very mighty and powerful! I love how Jesus is king, but he is also my friend. 

And, this was my favourite response from Rebecca. For some of them I don't really know what she's trying to depict though, but Jesus is her favourite animal and her favourite colour and so on..

And this is my own response!

Probably one of my craziest weeks ever since school started. It's crunch time now, group assignments are due in a couple of weeks, presentations to be made, essays to be written... Have been spending a lot of time lately meeting project groups, which is both good and bad because most of the time it is with familiar fellow geographers haha. 

And the reason why I feel like I really need a breather is because I have been handling a lot of hall rentals-related stuff this week! Towards the end of the year, it gets especially crazy because all the kindergartens are holding their graduation concerts, and I am coordinating and liaising with the rental groups to provide technicians from our side. This week alone we had three different groups coming in for rehearsals or concerts. And occasionally in the week I have to meet several of them at various times for informal discussions of how they want their setup to be like, what equipment they need, measurements, lighting. Phone keeps ringing with unknown numbers, because I don't really bother saving the many many contacts, and because they are more likely to ring me than me ringing them. Really glad for the end of this week, because it is driving me borderline crazy dealing with so many people. 

Last of all, I finally initiated a conversation with our new front desk receptionist at church! That job appointment has seen two or three changes in the past few months, and the current receptionist has been there for a month. And you know very well that church is like my second home haha, so I have been smiling and saying hi to this auntie all the time, and she recognizes me too. Her name is Jane, and she thought that I'm some part-time staff working in church! But she doesn't attend any churches herself, which led me to share about what I really do in church and how I came up through Sunday School (since I was teeny 8 years old) and blah blah. You must always have a testimony on hand, yes that is very very important. And nothing made my week more fulfilling, than to be able to share about growing up in church. 

Was at a Primary 6 camp on Thursday and Friday! Okay it wasn't really a camp, more like a stayover with many activities. The whole point was to begin the bridging journey from primary school to secondary, and last year Youth Dept decided to start an annual camp for all the P6s across all the corps after their PSLE. This year we only had six of them who were with us at the camp, but the small numbers meant that there were a lot of interaction with everyone and it was a lot more intentional! Had a really good time there, really enjoyed the time spent with them. We went fishing in Bishan Park, swimming with slides and wave pools, bowling.. Amidst all that fun there's a growing-up teenager talk hahaha, and it ended with SAY service on Fri night. Dedication is very important, and glad that it was a very good initiation for all of them!

Yes there are pictures!!! This blog post is not all words.

So I did say that I will continue my previous post of my university education, but obviously I never really got to it after more than a week haha. And then I received a surprise promo on Shihui's Twitterfeed!! So here it goes, I took that as impetus to pick up where I left off. 

I really really enjoyed my Literature course tremendously over the past three years. There were some slight dramas with my choice of minor, because I initially wanted to minor in English Studies, which is a combination of English as a language and English as a literature study.And I am so so glad that I decided to do English as a literature study fully! But I am not the best Literature student haha. Yes I read widely, and yes I enjoy reading, but the truth is that I read very slowly too! So there's 6 to 8 thick novels per module, and I barely get through 3 most of the time hahaha. Which is sometimes enough, because the exams tend to need only involve about 2 to 3 books for analysis, because you have essay choices. When I was doing A'Levels, we did about 6 texts in two years! Now we have to do it for ONE module alone, in three months only! I love it when the professor decides to put poetry as set texts, which is awesome as poetry is really my strong point and it is a lot easier to plow through. But I still love the stuff I learnt in my books Literature classes, because it really demanded from you a wide knowledge from as diverse disciplines as required. We had to dabble in psychological analyses, feminist writings, post-colonial writings, postmodernist deconstructions, modernist hallmarks, war, tragedies... Of these all, 19th century novels were the most painful, because that's when Victorian writers like Dickens and gang began exploring novels as holistic forms to encapsulate life, which means they wrote the longest novels ever with the longest plots and so many twists and characters! 

Which is why also, that I signed up for a lot of film studies modules! It is much easier to go to class and watch a movie, than to carry a book around everywhere I go every day of the week (which I still seldom read). Now film analysis is more fun. We try to understand how certain techniques unique to the camera gets rendered and portrayed as a moving image, and hence sound lighting cinematography editing all matters. Different camera angles or different panning modes or colors or editing sequences go under our literary knives. And then the really cool stuff comes in when we study auteurs, stuff like how Tim Burton movies always have macabre themes; and spectator theories with performativity, like how we react when watching a performed movie. 

For most parts I really really love my Literature exposure, and it is a shame that I couldn't take more modules from the department! Since I am only taking a minor, I really only need to take 6 modules, which is not a lot when you come to think of it. I would have been really interested in script writing for theatrical plays, or cultural studies! Yes I am hugely interested in cultural studies, you may recall from previous blog post about my affiliations with cultural geography. Which is what I sit in my Literature class and what I do! I unpick all those analyses and criticisms about the literary text with geographic underpinnings hahaha! All Literature students need huge reserves of knowledge in practically every philosophical topic possible, and  I am so thankful that my geographic discipline actually sufficiently prepared me in deconstructionist thought that I was able to throw in geographic jargon about space and place, as my only way to act smart in front of the class haha! But it is often airy-fairy mumbo-jumbo. Sometimes I can sit in class and everyone is talking English (and not even bombastic vocabulary), but for the life of me I can't understand a single concept. Ditto. About 30% of the time it flies above my head, and that's when I am secretly thankful that I am not a full-fledged Literature student.

For all the new friends I've made though, it was worth every bit of time and effort to stay alive through those Literature classes. I was basically hanging out with a lot of Year 2s (I was Year 3), and they all think that I am in their classes with an unfair advantage and that I am attempting to wreck the curve, but truth be told I am not very smart, and they are fantastic at critical thinking. Although you have to keep in mind the 30% information leak, which means either they are spouting nonsense, or I really am not equipped with the best Literature toolbox. 

More to come! Final installment on Geography next. 

This post is where I try to make sense of what I study in school. If you don't already know, or if you just need a recap, I am a Geography major and also taking a English Literature minor at undergraduate bachelor degree level now. Whenever people ask me what I'm studying, and I reply with that following identity, most often than not a lot of people tend towards a greater understanding of my literature discipline rather than my geography discipline. And I can easily see why, because literature is really quite straightforward. You read and analyze books and authors and stuff like that. But people don't really have that strong an idea when I say geography! They think rocks and volcanoes and earthquakes and tornadoes, or they think I am some explorer on a ship, or they think I know where all the countries are in the world and I know the capital city and the flag of each country. So here's an attempt to try and reason out (for you and for myself too) my interests in literature and in geography!

Literature is a better conversation starter generally, because people are excited to tell me about the books they've read! Yup the myths about all literature students are true, I do read a lot and I read very diversely too. I read anything from guidebooks, fiction novels, non-fiction topics, dramatic plays, poetry, newspapers, periodicals, magazines, online stuff, it's endless. But don't expect me to discuss about the novel plots or details of the stuff that I've read! Although I really enjoy the process of reading, I tend not to remember story plots more than a month after I've finished reading the book. Same goes for movies; I can't remember what happened in the movie after a few weeks of watching it haha. For university classes, we easily cover 6 to 8 thick books in a single literature module, and it is generally organized by themes (tragedy, psychoanalysis, etc.) or by period (17th century, 18th...). And the literature department in my school lumps Theater Studies and Cultural Studies and Film Studies under the same department too! I had a lot of interest in films, so my literature discipline is best described as half Film Studies, and half analyses of books from different periods. I've basically read everything from epic poetry like Paradise Lost, to modernist and postmodernist novels which are definitely more easily to digest haha. And I've watched quite a lot of films too!

Geography is more airy-fairy in a sense, because our sub-topics can very easily be mistaken as Sociology topics! Broadly speaking, I am 90% human geographer and 10% physical geographer. The physical aspects are very apparent; basically anything to do with rocks or climate or natural hazards or water management or earth topography things haha. Human or social geography is more difficult to quantify, we have sub-disciplines in urban planning, population analysis (ageing, health, migration), economics, geopolitics, cultural or social analyses, feminism, tourism, and a lot more! We tend to identify ourselves with a few dominant sub-disciplines! I've dabbled a bit into one of everything, but I am very interested in cultural geographies, topics like cultural hegemony, power and resistance, culture and politics, race, gender, stuff like that haha. I've taken a lot of economic geography modules too, but was never really interested in it heh. What really distinguishes the geographic thought is the idea of spatial and temporal contexts, like yes we talk about ageing, but we look into specifically why ageing in Singapore is different from that in Japan, because of culture differences, differing government policies... To put it as succinctly and as simply as possible!

More about this tomorrow night, I hope! To be continued. 

Yes yes I know I am not the most consistent blogger haha. But school's been really busy, and I do have many things to write about, but most of the time I am more compelled to writing assignments or small essays for school work! Really cannot believe that I am actually in my fourth year of university studying already. I can't imagine where all that time went in the last three years. With that too, this is possibly my final year of studying in an actual school too, considering that I am not thinking of post-grad masters or any other degrees or anything like that. Have no idea where or what will happen in future, but yeah I don't really want to study anything anymore for quite some time, because school is stressful!

It is quite a surreal experience, to put it in overtly-cliched terms. Partly because of awesome course-mates whose friendships I am finally beginning to appreciate. I've always kinda drifted through my past few years in university without really bothering to socialize much with school friends. I mean, like I do know people and I do talk to them and have occasional lunches with some of them. But now that the whole year's cohort of Geog majors are lumped into compulsory core honors modules, I see all of them practically every day in school and we hang out a lot more.

And I have never felt more inadequate too haha, because I constantly think that all of them are so much more sharper and more critical thinkers than I am! Sitting through discussions in class usually shuts me up, because I don't have much substantial stuff to add value to their incisive critiques haha! I always thought I read "widely" enough, but oh my gosh these people know stuff from philosophers and politicians and theologians and what-have-you, and I don't even remember much of what I learnt in previous semesters! But it is a good learning experience, and I really love learning and finding out new stuff and everything.

Add to the fact that I am not doing the honors thesis paper, and I really feel like I'm just taking honors programme for the sake of doing it. Almost 95% of the whole cohort are busy with the thesis papers, but here I am preferring to slog it through endless modular work instead. And I always feel inferior when people ask me what my research is on, but I sheepishly tell them I'm not doing thesis because I really can't think of anything that I want to write and research on. We kinda identify ourselves to our various geographic allegiances here, like you can be an economic geographer or a social geographer interested in feminism or urban cities geographer or cultural geographer or environmental sciences geographer. I try very hard to stick to cultural geographies because that is the sub-discipline where I think I have my strongest grasp on. But more about this in another future blog post!

The last thing that I'm struck with is how almost everyone of my course-mates have some inkling of what they wanna do when they graduate. A sizable portion of them will become teachers. Others are looking at civil service jobs, or NGOs, or wherever. And I really have no idea where my degree in geography is going to lead me. Maybe I should just go be a global explorer or something! But yeah I don't have a clue what I am going to do after I graduate, and right now I have a eerie thought that I will probably never step into a geographically-related field ever again.

We will see how this goes. And yes I promise to write in this blog diligently! I do have stuff to write about haha. 

Neglected this space for a while... Have since started school, into my second week now. The beginning of the fourth and final year was eventful before it even started! I almost didn't get into the honours programme, because of some miscalculation that left me one module short of fulfilling certain criteria. But that was over already, and hardly without a hitch too.

And school is a dread already. I have assignments due almost every week and it's looking crazy. But this is really the furthest I can go already, probably never going to do post-graduate studies and probably my final year of committing to studying something for a degree or diploma (I hope). 

Will try my best to post frequent updates! I do actually have a lot of thoughts that I need to document down, but am just lazy to do it here. 

Still doing up the worship leaders' training curriculum, and I honestly feel as though I am researching and writing for a term paper! There's a lot of books to read and then I will find stumble across relevant stuff in other books. Once in a while I will get some nice stuff from the internet. And on rare occasions I will chance upon very excellent and nuanced points, but it isn't necessarily related to worship, and then right there and then it gets me thinking and researching other stuff. And thanks to a few people who've passed me more books for reference too! Hahaha I think I enjoy reading generally, just that I'm quite a slow reader. 

Commissioner Lim commented before on his blog that sometimes reading many commentaries and topical books are really helpful, but nothing beats returning to the Bible for the absolute Word. Which I find totally true. I get swamped by all these thoughts and ideas from the books, and sometimes all I really need to do is turn back to what does the Bible say about this. And I have this dual parallel Bible with NIV and The Message translation side-by-side which really helps. I love The Message because some of the phrasing is quite damning at times haha, but in a good way and it challenges and convicts really strongly. 

My main distractions nowadays are the Olympics games! Streaming it live on Youtube. I will play it on one side of my laptop screen and then do the curriculum on the other side of the screen haha. Watching a lot of gymnastics and table tennis and volleyball and swimming. Actually pretty much everything, because it gets really exciting at times. Waiting for swimming to start now, haha the bad thing is the swimming event finals are usually 2 or 3am in the middle of the night. 

Am currently in the midst of drafting up some new worship leader training curriculum, because I'm trying to make my holidays worthwhile and productive. Aiming to finish the document before the end of July! And while I am doing this, I have to admit that for the longest time this is a constant dilemma to me because I have never ever felt like I am fully called into this area of ministry. Yes I lead worship sometimes and I play for the music team sometimes, but I always tell people that my worship team commitment is what I do on the sidelines. I'd like to think that I am called to do other things, that God has given me other giftings and talents which I feel I'm more adequate at.

Over the years I've attempted to reconcile the fact that I am never fully ready nor am I equipped, by telling myself to just be obedient and see where this takes me. Nothing strikes at your own ineptitude and  inadequacy as much as when you have to prepare for a training curriculum. Too much stuff you thought you knew, but you don't really; too many things you thought you did, but you never really. Currently I'm praying really hard for some form of direction with regards to my worship ministry. 

Well okay pictures! This is the amount of reading I've tried to plow through. And, my copy of "Worship Matters" is loaned to someone, but I can't remember who! If you're reading this blog (and reading that book), please return me asap, this current copy I loaned is Matthew's.

Holidays are the best, because I can sleep as late as I want, and therefore wake up as late as I want in the morning too. I'm not up to much currently, been reading a lot and online a lot. The few times that I've been out are mostly to catch up with friends or to do meaningless shopping. Downsides about these are that the more I go out, the more money I tend to spend. And this is dire because I don't have much income nowadays; all the guitar students are on summer holidays and I don't teach as much tuition as I used to.

Speaking of tuition, I do teach at Gracehaven once a week, and today finally broke the test of my resolve. I had to remind myself very firmly why I even started volunteering in the first place. Okay I admit, every week is a struggle to psych myself to make that (not so) long trip to Gracehaven and to set aside time for that tuition slot. There are so many other things that I can do on a Tuesday evening, and I needed all the persistence and perseverance in me to uphold that commitment I made.

I think volunteering and ministry work and serving people is pretty much about ensuring that everything is perfect and great for the benefiting parties, and very little about me myself benefiting as a result. I want to serve because it is a privilege for me to serve, and I don't want to have to drag my feet and coerce myself into doing things just because I have to. Maybe that's why I always believe in serving from my own overflow of abundant grace, because when it becomes difficult and dreary, it always helps to reference myself back to the first excitement.

Right now, I'm in my kitchen reading Eat Pray Love, and drinking Pepsi in an iced cup, and watching a little cockroach scurrying around my kitchen floor. Don't feel like killing it, because at 4am that's the only companion I will get. I hope eventually it will just get itself out of the window, or I will chase it before I sleep. And, can I just say, Pepsi is really diluted and just... weird. I drank Coke Zero today too, it tastes much too bland. Give me the real Coca Cola anyday. 

Back from Australia for almost five days now, and have been attempting to do more productive things like learning guitar or going out to meet people or reading vociferously. I am currently alternating between Batman comics and about to start Eat Pray Love (everyone keeps asking why read some girly book) and some magazines and some Christian teenage fiction book which I got from Aussie. Adjusting back to the hot sunny Singapore weather is a chore too, because I was so happily freezing in sub-10 Celsius degrees in Melbourne and Sydney. But I was only acclimatizing to cold weather for two weeks; have friends who are in colder parts of Europe for months on exchange, not to mention that it's mostly rainy since I got back, so I'm not really feeling the heat yet.

Our itinery for Australia was to head down first to the Victoria state for about a week. We spent a few days in Melbourne lazing around, found friends of Spencer and Meena, headed out to an out-back safari. Then began the road trips to Phillip Island to shudder with the penguins, and drove out about 8 hours to Apollo Bay via the Great Ocean Road to see the Twelve Apostles. Kinda amazing we drove so far out (and back) just to see some limestone rocks heh. Sydney we went after that, with another few days just touring the harbours and walking around. We did meet up with Melanie and Col Prema, who was there at the conference too! And more new friend(s).

Hillsong Conference was really great, it was so good to be going there as a participant without doing anything and to just soak up everything that was said and sung. To be truthful the topics and the electives were a big mishmash of information, from personal discipleship to evangelism to the various church ministries, but I think the beauty of it was discovering the many facets of a church life within the church life. Some of the stuff were really life-changing, it brought a new dimension to the way I saw things. Others were just continuous reminders of the ministries that I've committed to carry out and the awesome privilege of being able to do things in church. So fired up from all the new perspectives, and then back smack into the processes of leaderships, haha I have to remember to be humble and to be obedient, to change the things within my reach and to trust the things to God out of my control.

The smallest trivia while on holiday: I finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy within the two weeks. I prefer the Sydney Harbour Bridge to the Opera House. I took all my pictures using a film camera, it ran up to eight rolls of film (yet to be sent for developing). I think contemporary art really makes you think, but it is too subjectively controversially weird. And once I've fought off the ibises and the seagulls for my fish and chips by Darling Harbour, I will never ever find fish and chips as good as it will ever get in Aussie. 

I have about 6 more hours before I'm flying off to Australia in the morning! Can't quite decide whether I should sleep or what, because I have to be at the airport early too. Going there with Min Jie and wife, Spencer and wife, for Hillsong Conference in Sydney!! So excited about it, but before that we are going to take a week or so to holiday in Melbourne.

This is probably one of the rare times when I'm traveling and not caring much about the things that I am leaving behind. They will take care of themselves haha I don't need to be a busybody.

Okay I think I shall sleep after all. If I do update this space at all while on the road, see ya! 

Looking back at these past two or three years that I haven't been as active in worship leading or playing in a worship team as previously, I kinda realized that it actually freed me up in a lot more ways than I initially thought it would. Things like, the stress and the pressure is not as much now, mostly because I go about thinking that there are people who lead worship week in week out way more times than me, and their challenge to keep it fresh must be much greater than mine haha! And I'm more adventurous and more likely do things off routine, because, well, I only lead once in a while, so why not. Heh that may be good or bad depending on what or who or when, but I don't just shake things up for the sake of it. Or maybe just the fact that I get a lot more time to actually worship in congregation.

But really one thing that really freed up were the song selections and set lists. In the past I really needed at least a month heads-up to plan, but now it's all coming to me so naturally that I actually have to read and reference the Bible a lot more than I needed to, just to confirm and be certain. A lot of times it's just trusty guitar and then the chords or lyrics just flowed nicely, or the right song just appeared in that right moment in iPod, or something like that. Which is really great, because I try to think that I should lead worship and plan all those transitions blah blah just as how my quiet time is like.

And of course in these times, it helps a lot to have a new guitar!!!!! One that I'm really enjoying playing right now and it sounds very very good. Anyway, will be going Australia for two weeks on Saturday, and the guitar needs to go to someone who will utilize it within these two weeks. I don't want it sitting in my home unused haha. Let me know if you (or someone) want to borrow it!

I've always tried to go through my life without getting too attached or too sentimental over my belongings or my possessions, but truth is I am quite the hoarder. I keep useless things, I archive notes and letters, I have tonnes of things that I say I will find a use for it but never ever do. I treasure the things that I buy for myself, I am reluctant to give away the books I bought, and I usually take too long to deliberate if I am to give something away. I need a friend who will raid my apartment and not be afraid to discard or donate things that I have in excess, because I always make reasons for myself. It just never really works. 

It is with the hugest regret therefore, to announce that I have sold my Maestro guitar that I've had for four years. Got it during army as a 20th birthday self-present, it wasn't too expensive but it has the richest and most luxurious and most harmonic sound ever, to me at least. For years I will ignore all naysayers who complain about the guitar's playability, or size, or the sound (how dare they!), and I really enjoyed all the times playing with it in quiet time or worship leading. But deep down I know there are better guitars out there haha, and it's natural to aspire to get something more high-end, but I have been thinking for too long if I should even splurge to get a new one because the guitar is really great. 

And it all came to an end when I saw a forum post on Sunday requesting to buy the exact same model of my guitar! What are the odds of that, because it's not like my guitar is super-good and super-popular choice haha. I made the buyer an offer without considering too much, and by evening the same day I was meeting him for the transaction. Probably sold it at a cut-throat price because it's got several stains and scratches and knocks, but aargh it's gone and I felt like I lost a part of me at too impulsive an action. Reality only sank in when I remembered I still have to lead worship this coming Friday! 

But I'm only guitar-less for one day. Haha just got the Taylor GS Mini yesterday, too good and too nice and too melodious and an absolute joy to hear/play. Again I think it was a very impulsive decision, but haha I am very satisfied with my purchase and it's definitely a worthy replacement for the sold guitar. Still can't quite get over the fact that I sold my old guitar without as much consideration as I wanted, but oh new guitar!!! Haha the first ever guitar that I've got for myself, I considered for super super super long before deciding to give it to Celine, because all the nagging thoughts keep bugging me to keep it or sell it or just frame it up! But nah, giving it away without asking for payment really puts it to rest for me, because it severs all the baggage attached to it. Now that I sold the previous guitar, I feel like calling the person up again to buy it back hahaha. 

Okay. Good morning world. 

A while back I had a huge rant with Peggy about what constitutes art and culture. Haha she studies at Laselle and does all the arty stuff considered of an arty artist, so I figured it gets as close to the horse's mouth as I could haha. Okay I kinda believe that the notion of art is a very loose term; you can almost lump everything under the guise of "artistic expressions" and it can be considered art. So the very evident ones like oil paintings and ballet dance and sculptures and photography and theatre and stuff like that, no one will ever question their artistic worth or value or intention. But it's the more abstract and more postmodern stuff like Warhol's Brillo Boxes and Campbell Soups made into pop art, or the whole Dada movement. And they're constantly doing more ground-breaking stuff, like the lady who was rolling in black paint, which is why I tend to think that the divide between museum art and everyday life doesn't really make much sense anymore. If I am acclaimed enough, I can pour cereal in a bowl in a museum, and people will say that's art too, because culture is just everything.

Which is why I also believe that for something to be considered art, there has to be some form of agency and intention for it to be called art. So I still can pour cereal in a museum, but that's because I want to pour cereal in a museum, and this makes my art worthwhile, and possibly for some appreciation by others. It doesn't have to create value, just as long as I have the guts to do it and the foresight to do it first. 

Hence I think that the recent news about the SKL0 lady is great stuff, because she's real ballsy and she doesn't shy away from the risks involved in her street art, or graffiti, or vandalism, whichever you choose to view it. I do like her work, it captures the Singaporean life in a very succinct sticker and encapsulates the frantic spammage of the traffic light to conform to the hectic society haha. Her arrest is a shame, because the government spends millions promoting art and art development, but when art really appears, they clamp it down and shut it up. That said, I have to say that top-down imposition of art doesn't quite cut it. They always say they "gazette" spaces like Portsdown Road or Holland Village for bohemian cultural uprisings, and then they commission artists to "vandalize" postboxes as if it sprang out overnight like graffiti. But when authentic street art appears, all of a sudden it's not approved and not sanctioned and not commissioned, then persecution. However, I think that her actions are also a form of activism. She stuck the stickers with full knowledge that "anyhow stick kena fined", and it is a blatant risk she undertakes to impose her artistic messages. Which is why I find the petitions to free her as innocent artist kind of demeans her work, because then where's the highlight and emphasis of the ridiculousness of the government's double-standards on art?

Okay. It's time to sleep. I don't think I am making much sense anymore. 

Tonight was one of those nights that I had to make a choice what to watch, with the options spliced evenly between several DVDs and movies. I'm in the midst of a self-learn guitar resource, and then I just got another separate guitar resource from Min Jie earlier today, and I kinda just started the TV sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Not to mention several movies which I wanted to watch haha. But nah, after several wrestles and tussles I went with this Louie Giglio's series of talks on grace.

From my ministries at church, and with the benefit of hindsight, I've realized over the years that I tend to be too much of a do-er. My natural response to any problem is to prescribe a do-able solution, and I'm not happy if no action is done. Or I try my best to do everything myself. I still do too much sometimes, and I tend not to allocate, or to just be, instead of doing. So we have this whole thing about grace being God at work over the things we cannot do, and I have to constantly remind myself to surrender and let God take control of the gracey stuff. And then elsewhere it says also to work out your salvation, that it is an outpouring of the grace given that we aspire to be Christ-like, which again I have to remind myself that it is "work out" and not "work for". I'm working out because of grace, and not so that I can gain grace. I don't need to, but I want to.

At the risk of this blog post sounding schizophrenic, I shall stop here. There's a lot more to grace than this too. But I'm glad I picked Giglio over guitar tutorials. Maybe now I will go on to HIMYM.