Boomz Weekend

It hasn't been great at work.
it's crazy busy period.
and it's not so much the busy-ness or stress that i'm troubled about,
it was walking home late one night and realising I didn't have the satisfaction that usually comes when I've given my all.

I need to remember this emptiness.
it's so easy to be comfortable on a good day.

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Because I've been so stressed and dis-satisfied,
I'm yearning for some music and booze.
more the music, by the way.

The Tings Tings have been blasting in my ear for some time,
I love the angst, the frustration, the kick ass tone of the song.

On Friday after a church seminar,
some of us folks gathered spontaneously and popped by a cafe at emerald hill.
we sat and talked till almost 1am and that was actually the best part of the 2 day seminar. :)

(camera flash goes off)
"argh! you can't take a picture of us here! It's blackmail!" J screamed.
"Hey my bourbon looks like coke so i'm ok. i'm drinking coke and eating chicken man, it's a happy meal. You're the only one with the beer bottle, orhhhhh"


"are you guys going for the 5 part seminar? every friday for the next 5 weeks"
"so it's 1st week dempsey, 2nd week emerald hill, 3rd week pump room and so on?"
"if pple ask what's the seminar abt, dunno! it's 1st week dempsey...2nd week emerald hill...."

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woke up early to meet angie and S for brunch.
S just quitted her job and will be flying off on a 3 month holiday soon.
Pretty amazing.

Perhaps it's what Ben says,
it's not what job God wants you to do, but what He wants you to be.
So don't get hung up job A or B or C. They are ALL fine.

"are you all coming to send me off?" S asked.
"nope"
"friends i've known for a week are coming to send me off, and you girls i've known for years won't?"
"that's what old friends are for girl. We must take each other for granted, it's the mark of long friendship"

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Was gonna laze the sat away after brunch but Angie persuaded me to go for the lantern outing.
"You must go! I love paper lanterns!"

So for the 2nd time in 16 hours,
I was back with the church booze gang.

this time at botanic gardens,
eating sweet egg "it's Jap style, no i didn't mistake sugar for salt" sandwiches, mooncakes and chips,
playing dog and bone, blind man games and burning up the paper lanterns.

for the record,
i burnt 2 lanterns.

We then popped over to Dempsey for dinner at Ben and Jerry's,
and they talked so much abt the band there that I HAD to stay and wait for the band to start at 11pm.
The vocalist was pretty good,
but the music wasn't rockin enough for me.

I still very much prefer the pump room,
with Paulaner 2nd.

For the 2nd straight night,
we all got home past midnight.

"A few of us have ushering tomorrow in sunday service. we are gonna look so groggy. Usher everyone to the wrong place"
"I'm the holy communion supervisor! i've to be there at 10!"
"wonder what the grape juice will taste like"
"Everyone at the leader's meeting will look so sleepy. Jen will be the freshest one and she'll wonder 'how long was the dinner man'?"


G's eyebags were popping out of her,
she hardly goes home late.
"I think your mom's gonna ask you to change your cell group!"

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I met some brazilian circus missionaries at the esplanade some time ago.
and I exchanged contacts with the leader of the group so now periodically i'll get updates on the leader's whereabouts and life.

in Portuguese language too, no less.

His wife is now 4 months pregnant and they're back in Brazil.

"Oh Gloria a Deus ! Um grande abraço. Deus abençoe."

translates, according to free online web tools, to:
"Oh Glory to God! A great hug. God blesses."

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Apparantly in Cambodia,
besides no electricity, lights and meagre food,
we have to bathe in rivers and wells.

"use a sarong," Angie advised, "ask shimei for one. she has lots of experience using sarongs...at sentosa beach"

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Overheard from my phone conversation with Poot:

"Hello? Hello? I can't hear you. All i can hear is a guy talking and you panting." I screamed over the phone, while shimei shot me the look and started laughing.

"i'm at the movies", I finally heard her whisper back over the phone.


Oh Gloria a Deus indeed.
Deus abençoe all.

Windy Weekend


All my winds are back!
One of those rare weekends where i got to indulge in all my "distractions".

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Attended a combined area contest on Friday,
to watch how others competed.

it stretched all the way to midnight and i got so concussed i cancelled all the other toastmasters stuff scheduled for Sat.


there're only so many speeches one can take in 48 hours.

I guess it didn't help i was sitting under the aircon for 4 hours.
I only fully defrosted the next morning after a period of nausea.


I think i'll take the contest more lightly.
it's the only approach i can take.
God (or if you like, the creative genie) put the laksa in my speech the last time,
He will give me ideas for the next one.
And if He doesn't, then it's just not meant to be.


I remember the evaluation contest i watched last year.
there was one contestant from NTU that gave a super evaluation.
it's been a year and i still remember her speech.
In my conversations with several pple, i found that they remembered her speech too.


I forgot how far she went in the competition,
but I think one of the pinnacles a performer can reach is to give something that pple remember even when it's long over.


I daren't say laksa is anywhere near that.
But several pple have come up and talked abt my laksa thing.
and i'm just contented that I was able to give something that made an impression.


Even if it's just a one off thing.


Whether the genie or God would do it again is not in my hands,
all i can do, in the words of Liz Gilbert,
is to turn up and do what we do with pure passion and sheer stubborness.

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I just watched a talk by a past World Champion Speaker.
hmmm...food for thought:


1) Do you know what you have to give?
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. The little you know, is so much to others.


2) It's not about you, it's what the audience leave with.


3) It's not abt making new speeches. It's abt perfecting the speech you care about, and making it so good others will pay to hear it.


4) Our safety nets can be our dragnets.

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Started juggling again.
i KNEW i still had some juggling in me,
even though it felt so much like goodbye the last time.


for one i'm only 8% done in my M.A.D journey,
and if all else fails, i want to at least nail the 5 club cascade.


today felt like one of those days back then.
where we juggled and lost track of time.
where we juggled and ignored food until we became too hungry or it became too late.


we also threw some ideas around.
I'm always excited abt ideas, i just don't have the time and energy to initiate and see them through.
but i may have finally found pple with the same vision,
and hopefully collectively something can happen.


C suddenly got in touch with me,
and updated me on her 10 year old son's progress.
He hasn't joined us for a while because his violin lessons clashed with our sessions,
but recently he joined a children's talent contest and decided to juggle instead of play the violin.


She filmed him down and shared the video with me,
noting that she saw "a glow in his eyes whenever he juggles"


This was really one talented boy.
I replied to her that he reminded me of the days when i begun,
where there's so much to learn and everything was so fun.
And that he was very fortunate to have an encouraging mother.
One who saw the glow in his eyes instead of one who would scold him to spend time on things that are more "worthwhile".


I just managed to link up Mediacorp with them,
and soon he'll probably be on TV.


that's just super cool. :)


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On thursday during cell group I suddenly discovered something new.

But first i must state that there is a difference between believers and disciples of Christ.

Believers, meaning those who converted, but don't truely follow the Bible, are merely skimming through the surface of what Christianity is about.
Disciples, on the other hand, try their best to live Biblically.

I like my church because i think they are very focused on discipleship. :)

"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
Then you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free"

And the thing that dawned on me that evening,
was that a community of disciples is a very unique special thing.
It is a community of tolerance and support and encouragement.

And to spread this kind of community to the world must surely not be a bad thing.

Perhaps that is the essence of Christianity.
Not so much on the believe-and-go-to-heaven thing,
but in creating this community on earth,
where pple learn and live on tolerating, supporting and loving each other.

"Make room for us in your hearts.
We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have exploited no one."

BUSY BUSY

not happy today.
one of my colleagues has been working his butt off for weeks.
he's been staying late and working through weekends,
I don't even know how he does it.

and the only reward he gets is complaints on how he kept missing datelines.
it's not like he hasn't been working on it,
but it's like that with coding,
sometimes things works, most times they don't and you just get stuck debugging.

I didn't like what i saw.
it's such a thankless job.
I felt so sorry for him.

so i was sitting in the train complaining to God abt why things are like this,
and God went "do something"
"huh, like what?"
"you said no one appreciated him, so do something to encourage him."
"what if he thinks i have a crush on him?"
"pfft"

got him a card.
he better not make a big deal of it when i put it on his desk tmrw.

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i think there can be, and should be, more love in the office.
but all it takes is one to be selfish to make everyone else selfish too as a defensive measure.

it's very depressing.

Jesus must have been so saddened being amongst Man.

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getting dangerously close to being a one hit wonder toastmaster.
ever since the laksa thing i haven't been able to peak again.

we often joke abt how evaluation and impromptu speech contests are impossible to prepare for and there's a huge element of luck involved.

best lor.

I joined for fun and now i feel a burden to be more prepared since i'm a rep of the club.
and yet perhaps the more i prepare the less spontaneous i'll be.

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Asked shepherd if she wanted any songs from my mp3 player.
"nah, your songs are probably the noisy kind"
"no, i have soothing ones too. Just don't take those like 'my life will suck without you'"

i'm amused by how foul mouthed i feel when i use the word 'suck' and 'shit' when i'm with the church folks.

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Been reading up on cambodia.
angkor wat sounds like such a grand place.
Going on a short volunteer trip there.
If things go our way, we'll end up in a village with no electricity, lights, and "meagre" food.

Survivor time!

we'll get two days of free travel at the end and i've been placed in charge of the two days.
Grace joked that i seem to be more excited abt the last two days than the volunteer work itself.

Cambodia's attractions are all wats.
i only just realised angkor wat is a wat.
in other words, a temple, just like the wats in Thailand.
i always thought angkor wat is a name,
but nope. it's a wat called angkor.

we learn something new everyday.

our facilitator teased us with, "yeah, you guys can stay as long as you like and visit all the wats, just don't, you know, stay until you convert or something"

couldn't help smiling at that comment.
i can still hear Weiping's voice after we came back from chiang mai and i told her i converted to christianity.

"YOU MADE ME VISIT ALL THE WATS, AND YOU COME BACK AND GOT CONVERTED???

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i'm tired.
time to sleep.