Updates


it had been an ok week.


Shepherd told me she's thinking of moving abroad.
Pseudo shepherd has already moved abroad,
so there's some kind of pattern going on here.


i'm repelling all my shepherds away,
all the way overseas somemore.


Told shepherd next time i'll shepherd myself so i can leave too.

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I was table topics master for the last TM session.
Table topics is basically a segment for impromptu speeches.
People come up, get a topic on the spot, and they speak on the spot.


I'm the master so i get to set the questions.
I made them speak on topics like:
"Tell your spouse why he should dye his hair freezing white"
"Try to sell us a nail polish that is dried mango yellow"
"Persuade your boss to wear elephant grey shoes"


It was pretty fun.


I could have given them what BLin gave us in sec 4.

He made us write essays on:
"A kiss without moustache is like egg without salt"
and
"why men should wear short skirts"


i don't even remember what i wrote. How do you write essays on topics like that?

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Met up with primary school frens on friday, to celebrate Jen's birthday.

Learnt that Jack is also hainanese. Considering Hainaneses are supposed to be a minority dialect group, I do know quite a number of them. And it's not like i'm some active hainan clan member or something, the pple i know just happen to be hainanese.


Strange.


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Spent most of my weekend at the church charity bazaar.
it was a lot more tiring than i thought it would be.

Standing and entertaining passers-by for 5 hours (per day) is no joke.
Even paid gigs don't last so long. It'll cost them a bomb since we charge hourly.


it was quite fun though, cos i was at the balloon stall and was playing with the balloons most of the time.

my ballooning skills are completely rusty and to make things worse, my fingernails are long.
Tried to make flowers and ended up bursting most of them.
Completed two in 4 hours.


In the last hour, a customer asked for 2 flower balloons and i had to make them on the spot, despite me telling her i only managed two in the entire day.


i managed to do both flowers on the spot without bursting.
Praise the Lord. :)

i wonder if this "gig" counts as M.A.D journey number one. it is a charity balloon gig.
hmmm.
so M.A.D stands at 1.5 then. (the .5 is for the audition one which hasn't contacted me yet)


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Moses came down today and he taught me the bugs bunny sculpture again.
It's been 3 years since i last did Bugs Bunny!
and i've been itching to learn it again.


If there's some karma thing going on,
then this would be it.


I did my charity stuff,
and God gave me my desire.


So here's my bugs bunny 3 years on!

Now i realise too that these are the ugliest bugs bunny anyone has ever seen.

Mom thought the green one is a tortoise and the purple one is retarded cos i obviously messed up the hand and the foot. Both on the same side somemore. Obviously didn't learn my lesson on the hand there, and repeated it on the foot.

I can't help smiling when i see these 2 sculptures though. told mom that's what's so invaluable abt them. A nicely made sculpture doesn't make you laugh out loud. Mine do.
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I was in the lab on Friday,
and was dabbling about with my mp3 player.

Was trying hard to solder something but the solder refused to melt.
Just as i was abt to give up, i casually went "god i need some help here".
and the solder melted!

I know, it's just a coincidence right?

So that was in the morning.
sometime in the late afternoon,
I was trying to complete my measurements on time so i could go off for my appointment after work.
and my player refused to power up.

I was running thru all my back up plans and how i had to set everything up again on monday,
and getting frustrated and so again i went "god i need some help here".

And i kid you not, the player powered up immediately.

i thought it was pretty funny, more than anything.
it's quite freaky too cos i was all alone in the lab.

oh well, God works in mysterious ways. ;)
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i'm starting to like jogging.
i can think about stuff while jogging,
and today, i thought about my next toastmaster speech.

and it's about
"if you have the whole world in the room, what will you tell them?"
"what will your message be?"

i'm still firming up what MY message will be.
perhaps while writing and practising my speech, the answer will come.

Thank God for toastmasters.
Every speech i make, is a new discovery and sermon for myself.
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Time to sleep!

M.A.D Journey 0.5/100

I went jogging yesterday.

Just because i've been eating and sitting on the chair the whole day.

I thought some action would be good.

and it was.

Jogging is actually quite enjoyable when it's own time own target.

and at night can sleep well too.

Except that i was tinkling with my M.A.D routine and slept at 6.30am.

Anyway jogging was fun,

but the day after, which is today, is shit.

all my muscle fibres are aching.

And today is the day i have an audition somemore.

So obviously super stiff lor, cos my thighs hurt.

of all days,

i have a brainwave to jog the day before my audition.

As if that's not enough,

i had to lug my 10kg bag the entire day.

all the way to church and to shepherding and then to SMU to rehearse a bit and then to clarke quay to audition.

Now i'm aching from jogging AND carrying my bag.

The audition went ok i guess.

See how ba.

Alan is indignant that i had to audition for a FREE gig.

no choice, it's my covenant with God.

and it's fun too i think, cos i can experiment.

One day i'll put in the coke mentos thing in my routine.

I stumbled upon some Blue man Group youtube videos yesterday and all the inspiration came flooding back.

i'm excited about performing again.

I knew that my 100 show journey would give me some interesting experiences.

and the very first one didn't let me down already.

the audition for this one was held in a music studio,

so it was smoky, cramped and equipment everywhere.

They didn't even have a CD player,

so thank god for my new Nokia phone speakers.

All the auditionees there were music bands,
and i was the only clown who went to a music studio to juggle.
They did tell me i wasn't the only non band auditionee.

Some photos for the memories.

It could very well be as smoky and the photo shows. But i think the bad picture quality is because i didn't remove the plastic film off the flash and lens of my new phone!

I was completely ill prepared for this audition to be honest.

I had most of the ideas during my jog. And only started doing real stuff at 3.30am. I thought i could rehearse after my shepherding but ran out of time. So this ranks as the very first time i performed without actually doing a dry run before the performance.

I was almost late for the audition too, so everything was just going wild.

But this was a journey with God right? and whether imagined or not, i remember apologizing to God abt the ill-preparedness, of course it is impt but i just ran out of time, and i prayed that it won't bomb completely. And then i remembered who my "juggling partner" for this show was, and of course everything will be fine.

So this is journey 0.5 because i may or may not make it.

As i lugged the 10kg bag around, my mind told me my backside is super itchy to be doing this, but my heart knew i was gonna do it anyhow.

M.A.D 0.5! it's off the blocks at last!

Here's one for the Goodness

there've been ups and downs for the past several weeks,
like machiam bipolar disorder.
So i'm a bit more wary and in control of my emotions now.

these few days have been good days.

i just got myself a new phone from a new contract.
it's a nokia N81 and i've been twiddling with it for several days now.
so fun to check email and check GPS maps and it even has a voice reading function.

I made it read an sms with "whoppee yay do" and it did just that in a formal mechanical voice.

Technology amazes me.

The phone did hang on me several times, usually when someone smses me while i'm blasting mp3 songs, and i had to take the battery out to reset the whole thing.

Call it an occupation hazard, but something like that should have been caught and fixed somewhere in the development stage. It looks like a critical firmware bug.

I'm not annoyed enough to complain to Nokia yet.

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Boozing with weiping and lu was cool.
Weips and I actually discussed the bible over booze,
my shepherd will be so proud.

pump room rocks.
even with weird shirtless guys swinging wildly on the dance floor.

saw a table of ladies we suspected were pros.
One of them looked really really good.
Lu said she's probably premium priced.
"that's why only she's in red. the rest are in black."

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Witnessed my dear fren H's baptism on sunday.
the scene where his mom gave him a gold chain and hugged him,
i don't think i've seen anything so sweet in recent memory.
it really was a real life "awwwwww" moment.

he's such a good person,
and given the circumstances he grew up in, it really is unfathomable.

most of them are.
it's just so amazing witnessing the goodness in them, knowing what they've been through.
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weelee gave me a call out of the blue, was nice catching up with him.
Was watching march of the penguins during that time.
Mom was like "the show good meh? they walk walk walk fall down then walk walk walk"

that kind of summarises the show in one line.
some scenes were quite good.

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my assistant was performing a sparks test for me yesterday and he proudly told me he shot down a spider.

hmmm.

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I started work in my present place at the same time as this other guy.
he's in another department but we work on the same project.
Apparantly he got really stressed (as i was/am) and is now on the verge of giving up.

my boss was kidding around with this other colleague,
"don't push him just as much as you push her (points at me). He's a fresh grad, must remember, she has years of experience liao"

I gave them a wry smile, as i thought of how even i was on a real verge to quit, how i broke down several times in months, and how i turned to Christ.

Now that's pretty radical.

I'm really impressed by how my colleagues and the bosses handled this though.
It would have been so easy for the boss to just go "learn to cope or leave, that's life",
but he didn't do that.
instead the bosses and department all rallied to help him out.

it would have been understandable for the boss to be annoyed at how much mess there was,
but i saw genuine compassion.

It was so funny how pple who needed to ask him to get work done got stressed cos they didn't know how to approach him.

"I need this by tmrw lei. but how to ask? when i spoke to him he frowned so i went 'never mind, take your time' " my colleague laughed in exasperation.

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and just to clarify the point of turning to Christ,
i won't deny feeling too that pple do that in times of weakness,
but there's a lot more to christianity i haven't known abt,
and i am grateful that i have this moment of weakness to open my heart and mind.

feels quite divine actually.
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One of the aunties from my previous company called me suddenly yesterday.
She wanted to hook me up with someone's son.
She said his name is called Battery.

hmm.
and i'm Duracell.
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Ex-boss also called up this morning.
One of the US customers is here in singapore and he wanted to find out how i was doing.
Apparantly he told ex-boss i left the most impression on him, and ex boss jokingly asked when i was going back.

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I feel like i just went through a baptism of fire.
and there'll prob be more to come, but right now, it feels like i just came through and out of one.

and like they say, what doesn't kill you (even if it almost did), makes you stronger.

the events of the day,
from the hostility to the compassion shown within the company,
and the ex-boss phone call,
and the auntie phone call (which felt just as significant as the ex-boss one cos to me it showed i've connected to both the "top" and the "bottom"),

reminded me of one phrase:

"Let us not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don't give up."
Galatians 6:9

Somehow, goodness always wins. Stay faithful.

Interesting quotes i gathered from interesting times.

Angie:

"but heading on, guns blazing,
that's how i grow and learn
of course i realise all these only from hindsight.

and while it lasts it feels like shit"


Jen:

"my mom always says, at long as you don't get xiao4 and don't die, there is hope."
"Life is too short. Everyone should just be superficial, like me."
"You can take all my branded goods away, and i'll still be happy. I'm superficial with depth ok"

(Jen should really start her own book of proverbs)


Poot:

"the one who gave birth to me is in the room!"

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Of all weeks,
tmrw i'm the gamemaster for the cellgroup.
i'm gonna make them all play
"When you feel like a piece of shit"
i'm serious.
and it's a meaningful game too,
i'm not that mean.

if there's one thing to be happy abt,
it's to know that i have friends i can call at 1am in the morning.
when they are teachers, you know that's something.

In fact jen was already fast asleep.
she woke up to pee, saw my missed call, asked me what's up (i told her my rose withered) and we had a chat.
And all she wanted to do was pee. :)
("no choice, it's my life to take care of RGS girls. Even the old ones!")

and poot too, whom usually sleeps early.
both of us so badly need to meet our sea gods again.

and angie who has a way of putting things firmly and soundly and for entertaining my "hello woman...." msn messages.

i'm meeting weips to get pissed drunk next week.

time to get back to the basics.

You win liao lor.

it's like a bittersweet joke now actually...
and one day i'm gonna laugh abt this,
but now it feels like shit.

this is just great.

i'm gonna get bipolar disorder soon,
if i haven't gotten it already.

i think,
maybe.
it's time to be normal again.