M.A.D 4/100

Yet another testimony from the M.A.D journey.

On sunday i clocked in M.A.D number 4.
(5 is coming soon. Funny how these things come)

So on sunday,
half my energy was spent lugging the huge luggage to church.
after church session and lunch, i was ready to fall asleep.

but still have one gig to go,
and so i sleepily dragged the luggage there.

the stage was in the middle of clarke quay on a sunday afternoon.
who goes to clarke quay on sunday afternoons?
no one.

the crowd mainly consisted of friends of performers.
people who LEAVE together with the performers.

I was exhausted and sleepy and no mood to perform in the afternoon heat to no one.
As i tried desperately to stop thinking of the bed and start pysching up,
i spoke to God.
I told Him i was trying, and i know we're in this together.

Amazingly, the band singing in the slot just before mine,
started singing "the time has come" which is a rocking church song.

i found it so amusing.
what are the chances of a church band going on just before i went on?
what are the chances that they would sing a church song? and one that just played during MY church service too!

I smiled and sang along with the band,
still tired but it really lifted up my mood.

the collection wasn't as grand as the last one.
i did enjoy the show slightly more.
shortened the balloon warmup which dragged a little too long on sat.

the young church crowd that was there to support the previous band hung around,
and it was pretty fun.

my 10 min gig generated $45 this time. ;)

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During church service i was reminded of my journey so far.
God's presence was strong in every Tapestry event, all 3 of them.

Right from the audition where everything went wrong,
where for the first time i performed without running through the routine at all because i ran out of time,
where i reached late for the audition,
where i panicked and apologized to God for this audacious lack of preparation,
i felt Him say, it'd be fine. don't forget who's your performing partner.
and i smiled, reassured.

It was followed by the first gig where many things went wrong but i'm very lifted by the money raised for charity.

and then the 2nd gig where i was completely exhausted and the band before me started singing the church song and uplifted my mood considerably.

If God is with me for M.A.D, then He is with me through all the other stuff in life as well.

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M.A.D 4

Tapestry (clarke quay)- Raise funds to build library for association of visually handicap
(18 August 08)- 10 minute busking routine. Made $45.
-Personal Benefit: Testimony. Yet another sign and encouragment from God.

M.A.D. 3/100 -- Good Day

what a week it had been.
in true itchy backside procastinator fashion,
i piled up the entire week with stuff and did them all at the last second.

can't say i didn't somewhat enjoy it. :)

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mon was spent drafting my TM speech for Tues.
it kind of backfired because mon night i didn't feel like it was right.
i couldn't bring out the conviction, something wasn't in sync.

but it was too late to change.
so i did the speech anyway.

it didn't go that bad.
but couldn't nail it.

it is ok.

i'm now worried for my speech contest.
don't care whether i win or lose.
it's the humourous part i'm worried abt.
maybe i shld just go the other way and tell the saddest story i can think of.

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Wed was spent preparing for Thursday's cell gp presentation.
it didn't go too bad.
but thought it got a little too boring for my liking.

i get bored easily.

i'm ok if i'm an audience,
but if i'm a presenter i like to shake things up a bit.
not sure if that's appropriate for a cell group setting.

it went alright.

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Came back late on friday night and i had sat's gig to prepare for.
so that means no sleep.
Finally got some sleep at 9am sat morning till noon,
so could squeeze in more practice before meeting the shepherd.

i really should get some sleep soon.

now downloading free ringtones for my dad.
many fart tones out there. some are quite funny.
prob enjoy it more if i wasn't so tired.

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it was a pretty nice chat with the shepherd.
talked abt ballerinas and "when cutting meat in fine dining, do you fork the piece you're eating or the piece you're not?"

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the gig didn't go that great.
made many mistakes,
and i still have that feeling that i'm all fluff and no substance.
really should change that one day.

but one thing that made me really happy,
was that my 15 minute routine raised $100 for charity.

it was a conscious call during my routine to get pple to donate.
i was surprised by the genorousity,
but it was for charity after all.

it really feels a lot more satisfying than a paid gig.
if a gig doesn't go that great (like today),
i usually feel terrible.
It feels like prostitution if i get paid.
If i'm not, it feels even worst. like super itchy backside.

but for today, it didn't really matter how the gig went.
cos the main point was the $100 i raised for the needy.
very cool.

all the pain of spending the whole night brainstorming.
sacrificing sleep to get that last practise in,
and desperately trying to keep within schedule (shepherd kindly volunteered to buy the whistle and cucumbers for me).

it started raining somemore
(the rain stopped immediately after i sent an "argh! it's raining!" sms to shepherd. hmmm)

I took a cab to the venue because i was really stretching my toughness limits by that time,
and i was thinking 'this is turning out to be an expensive and strenous gig!'

but on hindsight,
it was pretty fun.
and that $100, that's just sweet.

In a way, i feel like that's my first lesson learnt on these baby steps into the journey.
Use your talents to help. We all need to give.

Here's the M.A.D score so far:

1) Balloon Gig at Hougang - Hope Centre raising bursary funds for Needy students
(27 July 08)
- 5 hour gig twisting balloons and selling them at $2 each, not sure how much was made in total
-Personal Benefit: Able to pass on a gig opportunity to Moses. He generously gave his time on my account, it was the least i could do to return his favour.

2) Balloon Gig at Hougang - Hope Centre raising bursary funds for Needy students
(28 July 08)
- 3 hour gig twisting balloons and selling them at $2 each, not sure how much was made in total
- Personal Benefit: Learnt the Bugs Bunny sculpture from Moses.

3) Tapestry (vivocity)- Raise funds to build library for association of visually handicap
(17 August 08)
- 15 minute busking routine. Made $100.
-Personal Benefit: Satisfaction of giving.

i'm sure as the journey goes on, i'll learnt a lot more about myself, my shows and God will reveal His plans more to me.

As a disclaimer in case jugglers are reading and unhappy that i'm spoiling market, the above first two gigs are church related and (3) is a self solicited gig (i asked them for a slot instead of the other way). Which means that so far, all the M.A.D gigs are such that if i didn't do them, they won't bother looking for jugglers anyway.

time to sleep.

oh a short testimony before that.

I reached the MRT station and was super thirsty.
Unfortunately the small news stand kind of shop in the station was closed.
Was too tired to do a detour with all my barang just to get a drink so i resigned myself to quenching my thirst only when i get home.

Xiwen called and we started chatting and "shepherding" (haha).
After the call i went to get some cash from the ATM and amazingly when i passed the news stand again it was opened!
I thought it was closed for the day but i guess the shopkeeper only closed it for a quick toilet break.

So you see,
God, in His own little ways, answers your needs, especially, i think, when you do things that pleases Him.

You may say i'm reading too much into it,
but it's hard to explain when you don't actually already have a relationship with God.
Some things, you just know and feel

As much as my mind, at this point, cannot be fully convinced that God exists,
it cannot also be fully convinced that God doesn't exist.
And that makes all the difference.
Amen.

Stumbled upon and found this pretty inspiring.

"The bizarre crime echoes the French film 'Amelie' starring Audrey Tatou in which a gnome belonging to her father is taken around the world and photographed to show him how much he is missing out on in life."

Gnome at last: Stolen garden elf is returned after a 7-month adventure around the world

It's been a bizarre week.

In a nutshell:

1) While researching for a cell group presentation, I went down the wrong path and ended up emailing my shepherd a video link saying that the bible is bullshit.

2) she obviously wasn't too pleased. on hindsight, i think i may have annoyed God too. Anyway, managed to dig out gd stuff after all that dirt and all's well that ends well.

"Trusting God and trusting the Bible is a cycle. There's no real entry point. The more you trust God, the more you trust the Bible and the more you trust the Bible, the more you trust God. When you trust a friend, you recognise the jokes as jokes, the metaphors as matephors and the stories as stories. And you know that on the things that truly matters, it will not lead you astray."
-paraphrased from http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=5

3) My tech with his explosive temper exploded again and he stormed to the manager saying i gave him too much stress. That's not gd at all cos i was his direct boss and he basically bypassed me to my boss' boss.

4) I took it amazingly well, surprising even myself. Wasn't upset at all, and found it somewhat amusing. I am one of the most accomodating pple in the office, even the manager commented he knew it was not my style to stress others.

We are polar opposites. I am so mild to the point that it is no longer a strength but a weakness, and he is a brash and fiery expressive person. not a gd leader-subordinate combination i guess.

5) Kind of resolved this "hottest water cooler topic of the day". We're still trying to communicate better. He told me to give him time, I advised him that his temper is his biggest obstacle to greater progress.

He told me he felt like a bee. After the bee stings, the bee dies.
I assured him it was fine. I understand he just tilted over the edge that day.

6) It's still quite awkward. But i'm learning. many many things to learn outside my comfort zone.

7) Got so overstretched by work i got pushed over the edge. Again. Dealt with it my own way.

8) On hindsight, now that it's over, it was/still is painful, but I have grown and am still growing, my relationship with God grew (and is still growing), and my relationship with colleagues grew too.

9) so interesting.

10) i messed up the toastmasters speech. Didn't nail it at all. crafted it too last minute and had to deliver it even though it didn't feel right. I'm getting tired of inspirational speeches. I think i will do one on engineering ethics. Just saw 2 documentaries over the last 2 weeks on how management decisions overruling engineering advice caused disasters. One resulted in a space shuttle explosion, killing 7 of the smartest pple on earth. One resulted in a shopping centre collapse, killing thousands.

You may think engineering is boring, but it is impt.

11) i impulsively entered the humorous speech contest and an impromtu evaluation contest. i am so screwed.

12) now i have to prepare for tmrw's charity gig. i don't have a gd feeling for that too. oh dear.

Itchy backside. itchy. itchy.

Yanni Yanni Yanni

On friday i had a sudden urge to listen to Yanni's Aria.
So i did a quick Youtube search.
i've forgotten how beautiful the song is.
it's a masterpiece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HC8XQRoEYM

And then i went on a Yanni rampage.

One Man's Dream makes me want to cry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubTveCihjoQ&feature=related

Marching Season makes me smile.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF8zc10ahR4&feature=related

Felitsa is a super sweet song for his mother.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dTt_DnywZ4&feature=related

and this, Reflections of Passion, makes me incredibly inspired, and sad at the same time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKe5IzYG2Cg&feature=related

"everything great that was created by Mankind, began as a single thought. and we're all capable of such a thought, because, we, are... all ...the.... same." - Yanni

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Listening to all the songs i was hooked on way back then somehow made me very reflective and sad.

it was late on friday night and the yanni music was on and everything was just set.
Set for spiritual communication.
Was gonna start on my speech because i knew it would speak to me.
(wah chim. I will speak my speech and my speech will speak to me)

but then i needed to poop first.
and i grabbed the bible with me.

I was just flipping thru Isiah and then Proverbs and I ended up at Ecclesiastes.

"Meaningless! Meaningless!
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
-Ecc 1:2


Great. Just great.


2 great quotes i came across this week, from a Toastmasters magazine (of all places):

1)"Never turn down assistance or hesitate to ask for help. Remember, your need is someone else's opportunity to give. And we all need to give. Right now, it's just as important for me to give as for you to receive."

2) "Our main buisness is not so see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand."


I just itchy-backside signed up for the internal club humourous and evaluation contest.
I also got thru the auditions. so looks like busy days ahead.

everything, is meaningless.