Toastmasters Bug

My toastmasters bug is biting me again.
Went for a meeting that day,
they invited a special guest, the lawyer who beat me at the last contest, to talk abt his contest experience.

He is a very impressive speaker,
strong, calm and charismatic,
and you know by listening to him,
that he has a lot of intellectual and spiritual depth.

And he is VERY into the art of speaking.

I was late and sat at the back as I wasn't feeling well,
and when he talked abt pockets of energy in the crowd,
he pointed out that i was a pocket of energy but i wasn't feeling well so the energy is low.

What impressed me was his audience awareness.
I wasn't sniffing at the moment he pointed out energy so he must have been watching us while he was speaking.

I should learn that.
Watch the audience as much as the audience is watching you.

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After that he talked briefly about the last contest where he got 1st and where i was 2nd.
When he discussed abt the "good, bad and ugly" of contests,
of how he has seen contestants disappear from the scene completely after losing,
I recalled how it was quite painful to lose.

After the high, it comes down with a thud and it took a few days to get over the entire experience.

And this coming from someone who joined completely for fun in the beginning.

But now that it's done and over, there're no hard feelings,
just lessons learnt.

He was the last contestant to speak during our contest,
and I was the 2nd last.
And he mentioned that he could hear the tremendous crowd support i had while waiting for his turn. (He used it to motivate himself further!)
Though he didn't hear my speech,
he was sure that if i went after him that day,
i would have won, and gone on to Macau.

Since the speaking sequence was done by balloting,
it dawned on me that God probably had a hand in it.
And i wonder why God didn't put me in as the last speaker.
Why didn't God want me to win?

As soon as i asked the question in my head,
the answer came to me.

if i had been last speaker,
i wouldn't have heard his speech,
as i would have been waiting in the holding room.

And if i didn't hear his speech,
how then can i learn from the best?

And if i had won,
it wouldn't have been justified.
He was the better one that day,
and he should have won.

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the next contest is in March.
this time it's a real speech contest,
not an evaluation one.

i haven't done a speech for 6 months,
it's crazy.
but i'm itching to do one again,
and join the contest for fun.

Was talking to AP during the break,
and he asked me how to think abt topics to talk about.

"Talk abt something you're passionate abt," I said, "Even if it's a boring topic, just being passionate abt it makes you an engaging speaker"
"I'm just enjoying life lei, not really passionate abt anything. I used to be stingy, but now i'm just enjoying life."
"what made you change your outlook?"
"my mother passsed away recently, and that got me thinking."
"You have a speech right there!"

"i was thinking of talking abt emergencies. There was once i worked in a hospital and they had a power failure in the middle of a brain surgery, and i had to work under pressure to bring the power up."

"You have another speech right there!"

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now i'm brainstorming on what to talk abt in the contest.
I guess the guideline is,
if i have 7 minutes to share with the world,
what will I say?

Teleconversation with SK

SK - past president of our toastmasters club.
one of the funniest married middle aged guys i know.

"Hi SK you called?"

"ah yes yes. I need two girls. One to be my girlfriend, one to be the next president of the club. which one do you want to be?"

"haha, sk...you know i can't be president"

"so you going to be my girlfriend?"

"no."

"If you can't be president, i'll need to ask xxx (one of the notorious members). But i'm afraid if i do that, next term the club will be left with 10 members."

"haha...only the mentors left!"

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even reading his emails make me laugh out loud.
there was once where the exco kept getting emails from the president under the name "huang zhiling", which wasn't her name at all.
no one said anything until SK replied to all one day:

"we've been getting emails from a mysterious huang zhiling.
i thought it's the President's boyfriend sharing her account,
but today she told me she doesn't know who huang zhiling is.

i know because she asked me to her house today to remove huang zhiling from her computer."

(I never got round to understanding what the whole story is, but i think the president really didn't know who huang zhiling is)

and every now and then whenever the President doesn't reply, SK will tease with "i think all the emails are going to huang zhiling".
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SK cracks me up. :D

The one with Buffalos, Ducklings & Aunties

went swimming with shereen at a public pool yesterday.
it was sooo crowded.
there were kids galore.

i felt like a buffalo wading through a flock of ducklings.

shereen kicked 2 of them accidentally while swimming.
I, on the other hand,
got splashed at (gosh watch them do freestyle!),
got molested by flailing arms,
and i even had one kid swim straight at me while i pressed myself against the wall to let him through.

he kind of bounced off me before realising i was there.

the best moment though,
was when i was slowly swimming through this cluster of kids,
and the coach shouted at the top of his voice,

"children! let the AUNTIE go first!"

hmmmmph.
$%$#%#$^%^#$@.
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did you know that there's a huge Food Republic at 313 somerset.
and the drinks stall auntie moves around in a Segway??

like wow.

"Hey look the drinks stall auntie is riding a Segway!" i nudged shereen.
"hello she looks younger than you, and you're calling her auntie" shereen replied.
"I need to take revenge for what happened yesterday when the coach called me auntie ma"

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time to do some bounce juggling!

The Turning Point

While I was brushing my teeth today, i suddenly had recollections of stuff.
particularly of that one very upsetting night i had.
one of those really low points that only happen a few times in your entire life, usually when someone dies, that kind of low point.

not that anyone died that night.
not literally anyway.

I needed to talk to someone who understood but it was late,
so i msged Jen and Poot,
expecting them to be asleep and only getting to read the msg in the morning.
i forgot what i wrote but i must have sounded very sad.
it still amazes me to this day that both called back.

Poot happened to be working late,
and Jen read my msg when she got up to pee.

that was the night i realised how impt it is to have someone when you need one,
and how impt it is to be the someone to someone else in need.

it makes a huge difference.

it was also the closest i came to leaving church,
like seriously, not just pontang-ing.
and Angie came along, my steadfast catholic friend who always gives the most sensible advice, gently went

"When i face difficulties, i'd just go for it, with guns blazing.
i find that it usually makes me stronger and better in the end. Don't run."

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and all these recollections came while brushing my teeth!
what do they put in Colgate these days??

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The same Angie friend told me the Killers were coming to town.

"the killers? but don't they only have one good song? Human"
"no way. have you heard Mr Brightside and Spaceman?"
"nope."

so I went to snoop around,
my gosh i didn't know those songs were by the Killers!
it's just as well i didn't buy the concert tickets,
since it was announced today they're cancelling their Asian tour.

The Spaceman lyrics and video caught my attention,
especially when someone commented it was about the singer's attempted suicide.

Doesn't he look so much like Cesc Fabregas?



(lyrics at 1:50)

You better look it over,
Before you make that leap!

And you know I'm fine, but I hear those voices at night
sometimes... they justify my claim,
and the public don’t dwell on my transmission
'cause it wasn’t televised...

But, it was a turning point,
Oh what a lonely night!

The star maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad;
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down! It's all in your mind!"
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I've had two friends stand on that ledge,
who would have known?

("and the public don’t dwell on my transmission 'cause it wasn’t televised...")

One jumped.
the other didn't.

The one who didn't, wasn't a christian then.
And he went "if there's a God, you better stop me now"

He was the one,
who eventually brought me to Christ 10 years later.

Heidi Baker:

"We had a christmas party last month, and I saw this beautiful 14 year old beside me. She was a girl who got abused years ago, tied to a tree, abused by her uncle and his friends. And we picked her up all broken. And after all these years she has grown to be a beautiful person.

And I told God, even if it was for just one, for just this one, it was all worth it."


Benny Prasad:

"Fame and success are cheap, really, i've seen them," he says in gentle sincerity, "I thank God I do not go for these. Knowing your position in Christ is enough. Really."

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I gave a colleague a bible months ago and in the usual fellowship manner, wrote encouraging stuff on the first page.

last week he told me his wife found the book while cleaning the room and she interrogated him the whole night on who I was.

"you and your bible," he smiled in exasperation, "你害我"

haha. OOPS.

Went jogging on Monday,
it's been months since i last jogged.

And then i fell sick on Wed.

I popped by a friend's new place on Thurs.
My my what a great place,
it is a walk up apartment built in the 1950s and comes with a spiral staircase going up to an open rooftop.
The previous owner renovated the inside and it looks like an artist's studio.

very raw, very edgy, very cool.
all she needs now is a vespa to complete the retro theme.
And probably a toilet curtain will be nice. (the toilet has no door!)

now we wait for a "i quit my job to travel round europe" friend to come back so we can do a sleepover.

"You should put a swing on the rooftop"
"you want to swing where? swing to the next block?"
"the metal kind pple put in their gardens. then you can sit and swing and watch the sky"
"how's it gonna come up the spiral staircase?"
"Just pay the transport guys $30 and let them figure it out. they can get a helicopter or something"

Going up the spiral staircase at night was like going through an obstacle course.
it was dark, the railing is low, the steps are narrow and the upstairs nighbour put potted plants on the steps to make it even more challenging. And when you get to the top it was pitch dark and there's a clothes line at neck level waiting to claim its next victim.

it's a nice place though, the rooftop.
the kind where girly heart to heart talks can take place and where you can watch the sky and talk to God if you wish.

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I had dinner with 2 friends, one a fashion designer and the other a fashion enthusiast,
and grabbed the chance to get costume ideas from them.

Somewhere along the way,
they decided i should be turd.

as in shit.

"it'll be quite cool you know. pple can look at you and go 'hey that shit's quite good'"
"you can stick a flower on your head so it'll be like 鲜花 on 牛粪"

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On friday i got to city hall early and juggled for half hour before i had to leave.
it was a good session,
i'm fairly inspired.

I popped by this church conference in the vicinity,
and thought if it got boring i'll sneak back out and go juggle again.
Ended up sitting quite near the front of the room so it made it hard to walk out mid way.

it begun like a normal church service,
and i was quite amused at how i ended up there on a friday,
attending a service with another church when i had one on sunday, amongst strangers i've never seen.

but it was a good session.
Benny Prasad, a indian missionary/musician played and wowed me with his 2nd song.
His gentle spirit, his modesty, his utter commitment to a higher calling.



For the last few days i've been getting ideas for another juggling routine.
it's wonderful and i see it in my head so clearly and the only thing i lack is my ability to perform it out adequately.

the 2nd song he played incorporated traditional Indian instruments.
"When i saw these instruments along the streets, i felt God asked me, why aren't they used for worship? all instruments are created for worship"

i wonder if he has the same creative process.
ideas that come from the genie, from nature, from God.

I wish i can show the world what i see in my head.

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Heidi Baker, a missionary in Africa, a caretaker of 10,000 orphans in the poorest country in Africa, drove in straight from the airport and gave a sermon that night.

She is 50 and so full of passion and energy.
she reminded me so much of Carmee.
they even have the same scarf thing going on.

there are some very amazing pple out there.

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I was so inspired i left at 11 and went back to juggle.
now i have a bruised thumb-web.

I have probably the most abused finger/thumb -webs in the country.
it's a strange injury.
and it's a damn web, those little insignificant flaps of skin between fingers.

they don't even really do anything,
and no one notices them,
much less injure them.

but when they hurt they REALLY hurt.
I cracked them while juggling in the dry winter in the US,
and they took forever to heal.
the cracks re-opened everytime i juggled,
and it hurt like 10,000 paper cuts.

a bruise is so much easier to deal with.
looks like it's spreading and becoming bigger.

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I left near midnight so i could catch the last bus.
it wasn't very fun walking through the esplanade underpass alone around midnight,
especially when the art display this month is "a photo display of death-sentence criminals and their last meals"

it was creepy at that moment, but still an interesting display.
showed pictures of the criminals, how they were sentenced, and their last wishes.
some had normal burgers and fries, some had special requests like one pickle, and one's last wish was for "world peace and equality".

reminded me of that time i was at the orchard underpass at midnight,
walking all alone,
and all the advertisement boards had that automated switch thing and they all flipped at the same moment with a loud "ZOOOP" and there were all these billboard faces looking at me.

creepy.

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time to practise.

The Day It Rained Money!

one of those really amazing days
when it really rained money.

During lunchtime I checked my mail to find my Cambodia teammate say we've got the claims for delayed baggage from our travel insurance.

Remember how we arrived early at the airport but got stuck in a long queue and we only managed to check in 10 minutes before the gate closed.

We ran our butts there but the baggage got left behind.

Quite frustrating to get there and find that our bags were still in singapore,
but realised later how fortunate it was because we didn't have to carry our luggage around.

And by evening time when we actually needed our clothes,
there the luggage was,
delivered from the airport to our hotel doorstep.

Well today we got a fairly big amount of lump sum from insurance.
And the most beautiful thing of all is this,
we'll be donating this to the Cambodian fund.

It feels so much like God just made use of our mild inconvenience (if it can even be called that) to channel some money for the needy.

Super cool!

and funny how this came abt just as we're throwing ideas around on raising funds for our next trip to cambodia, where we might just build a house in a place full of flying cockroaches.

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Later in the afternoon my fellow countdown juggler called me to say he has transfered the countdown gig payment to me.

"it's actually $xxx per hour"
"it's per hour and not the whole night?????" i asked in disbelief.
"yea it's per hour" he laughed.

suddenly now got another (small) windfall.

I'll prob spend this on a big furlooha costume,
which i'm still brainstorming and finding inspiration for.

I can so see a market for the big furlooha,
and if i can take off with it,
i can do so much more for the M.A.D journey,
and that's gotta be something worth doing.

what a strange but blissfully blessed day! :D

The Secret to Happiness

I had fresh insights today on a question that has been bugging me since forever.

What is the secret to happiness?

I'm referring to a sense of deep peaceful joy,
and not quite the stand up comedy one-laugh-a-min kind of happiness.

Many books and two religions later,
It was established quite a while back that "gratitude" is part of the answer.

This year I found part two.

"There was love among us,
there was connection with complete strangers.

That was the essence
Of true happiness."

Happiness comes from gratitude and love/connection with other people.

And it ties in with the two greatest commandments of the Bible:

(1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Be always thankful, be always humble, be always aware that it's your love for God that makes you fortunate.

(2) Love your neighbour as yourself.

Love. Connect. Serve.
incidentally, the most memorable moments that I feel deeply for have always revolved around connection with strangers.

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Words of Wisdom from my favourite book at the moment:

"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. "
1 John 3:17-18

"No one who lives in him keeps on sinning.
No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him."
1 John 3:6

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God,
because God is love."
1 John 4:7-8

Reflection

Was wondering what i've done in 2009,
it seemed so quick and felt like nothing really happened.

But on closer look,
there were several very memorable experiences.

For Toastmasters,
the contest experience was amazing.
especially considering I joined for fun,
and even had to borrow paper from other contestants on contest day.

It was a pity I couldn't spare the time to do all i wanted for VPPR,
and i'm embarassed to be mentor for TM@Hope since i've completely MIA-ed.

it was very satisfying though,
to drag our website to the top of Google search again,
after the hack brought it down to oblivion.

Haven't juggled as much so not much breakthrough there,
I still have hopes of doing 5 clubs.
it's been years, my gosh.

The Safra gig I will remember,
and Shannen's wedding gig was fun too.

I walked past Clarke Quay on new year's eve,
and realised Clarke Quay held so many memories for me.
Some of us jugglers almost grew up together with Clarke Quay.

We busked as a group and earned enough for KFC dinner there,
we busked individually and I had my biggest collection memory there,
We watched buskers' festivals there,
we performed in festivals there.

Clarke Quay will always remain special.

The Cambodia trip capped the year off perfectly.
that along with all my east coast escapades, just me and the deep blue sea,
and inspirations from church camp.

it hasn't been a bad year after all. :)

First post of 2010

So the last day of 2009 just came and gone.
It begun as a tired day,
I was already sleepy at noon,
wondering how i was gonna last the whole night.

the worst thing was that my countdown party gig got pulled forward,
and I can't believe we didn't get an early day off (my dad had half day off and my mom was complaining she had to work till 4pm until i told her mine was a full day),

so it was a mad rush from my workplace where the birds don't lay eggs to the countdown party.

I got there just on time.
My what a pretty place the office was.
it was a drama/party company which organised this,
and we gathered in their office.

it was structured with many dance studios,
so we had a room to ourselves like a dressing room kind of thing.

the first hour was a real drag.
there was hardly anyone,
they were playing jazz/opera music,
and I felt pretty bored.

More so since I already had a full packed day at work and flew down without having anything to eat or drink.
Machiam run ge tai.
I remember thinking at some point that this wasn't fun no more.

The party manager looked very uptight and fierce too,
and after a while i learnt not to cross her path when walking from one end to the other.

During our break the 4 of us went to 7-11 for cup noodles.

"We look very poor lor," I told Will, "maybe the diners will start tipping us later when they see us poor things eating cup noodles"

I've always enjoyed these behind the scenes sessions during performances.
It can be quite lonely performing alone and having no one to hang around with backstage.
But with other performers "in the same boat", we can joke and hang around and make light of things.

Midway through cup noodles, the party manager walked in and was a lot more relaxed this time.
"I want you folks to enjoy yourselves ok," she almost commanded us, "it's a party! Just enjoy yourselves, i want you to enjoy yourselves."

After dinner we hung around the dance studio and watched Will try out miming.

"It's 9.45 guys, time to stand by", I reminded them, "even though even if we stayed here the whole night i think no one will know!"

"Gosh this mask doesn't go with this suit at all," I suddenly saw myself in the mirror, "鬼啊!!!"

"Well now that you mention it..." the guys started laughing.
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I loved the 2nd session.
the music was a lot better this time,
and there were a few more kids and pple around too.

As we mingled with the kids,
it kind of reminded me of Cambodia.
Kids are kids,
whether rich or poor.

The crowd was rather atas but they were still friendly,
and it was just a comfortable warm feeling this time.

I thought the party manager's reminder was a timely one too,
it's a party at the end of it all.
we are allowed to enjoy the party you know.

And this time,
i remember thinking,
i can't believe i'm getting paid to do this!

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somewhere along the way the stiltwalker crashed behind me,
I heard a loud noise,
turned and saw him step on a grass patch and topple over.

he stayed down for quite a while,
and disappeared after that.
thank God he wasn't badly hurt,
probably just went off to adjust his stilts,
and he appeared again after a while.

The jazz singer on stage turned out to be my school mate.
she was in the choir and i've heard about her foray into musicals and theatre acting.
seems like she has an album out now.
you go girl.

not sure if she could recognise me in my clown suit.
reminded me of the time i was in clown suit and i bumped into sha-en in her samsui woman suit in the same event. that was quite hilarious.
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So that caps 2009.
Glad I ended on a peaceful contented note.
I should probably get my M.A.D journey going again,
and i should start by getting myself a real proper costume.

"next time you'll see my wig enter the door before you see me" i told the guys.

should also start my toastmasters engine again,
now that VP of PR has reached its end.

oh the cambodia post has been taken down.
it's too complicated to explain, the gist is:
whatever happened in cambodia, stays in cambodia. :