Ewong De Gu Shi 4(?) - Ewong Comes Back

been back since Nov 2015
I even started another blog which 'doesn't look like it might get publicised soon
too spiritually intense that one
all the other superficial surface nonsense ends up here

It seems like i've been busy planting weeds in my life
things are getting busier
none of which are bringing in dough
not sure if i should start getting concerned with that

haven't been juggling much.
the scene has evolved tremendously
I feel like a stranger there
but the bigger thing is that i have no energy or passion for it anymore
seems more suited for the "young" ones

I have been quite involved in toastmasters though
getting arrowed into contests and joining stuff like the Amazing Race

the best part of the Amazing Race
must have been listening to 14 year old Tracy go
"You guys find those sections. I'll go to hell first."
We were at Haw Par Villa so what she really meant was she would go to the "8 levels of Hell" section to find the photo we needed for the Race.

While the rest of us laughed and her mom went "choy choy",
Tracy repeated while maintaining a poker face
"Ok two of you go that way. I'll go to hell. With mom."

Reenz and I thus went to everywhere but "hell",
and the last thing we needed to look for was "new york"
Like what $%$@ does "new york" mean in haw par villa?

"is it a restaurant? like new york new york?" i wondered.
We went to ask a cleaner nearby where New York was and he told us
"go down the stairs and you'll see it. It's green"

"Er...Uncle is it like a restaurant?"
"it's green."
"it's a statue?"
"ya green."

Green statue of new york? what the $%$%# is that? statue of twin towers? statue of a map?

"Is this the one?" Reenz asked,
pointing to the memorial of the Haw Par Brothers.
"Er...as in, it looks like the twin tower?"
we thought about it for a moment.
"not green"
and we continued searching for the mysterious green new york.

Turned out to be a green statue of liberty next to the pond.
Why would they suddenly put a statue of liberty in a place like Haw Par Villa????

The rest of the race was eventful enough.
Besides not having stamina to run from Vivo to Sentosa.
We were so out of breath that when a group of undergrad boys raced past us,
Reenz went "eh relax la"
and i went "ya must give chance to aunties you know?"

And one boy actually stopped running. haha.
Good boy.
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Club Contest

wasn't intending to participate this time as i wanted to warm up with some speeches first
and also check in on the standards now
sekali super pro then very malu

before i knew what happened
i got arrowed until i joined not one but TWO contests
i just went with the flow in the end as there weren't enough contestants anyway
so just do for fun lor

I think my speech is still a little rough
I don't feel the flow and smoothness,
rusty already.
but i ran out of time and so just gave whatever i came up with.

started jotting down in my mini notebook while waiting for weips on Tues
The juices didn't flow as i grappled with why the audience should even care about my topic on the poor
"why should they care weips?"
"I think you should just take song lyrics and make a speech out of it"
"Like say 'everyone on your feet and start shaking your booty'?"
"yup that's it"

in the end i msged weips
"i'm just going to do the speech. At least it will reach the ones who care. And for those who don't, well, they're stuck with me for 7 min! it won't earn me contest points but so be it..."

So i went ahead with the speech.
The great thing is...the flow is still choppy,
and while worshipping at Lifegroup on Thurs, I got an inspiration for moving the parts around for better speech flow.
I tried to remind myself during worship to stop thinking of the speech and focus on God but i actually think the inspired moment was from God, because i was quite intentionally not trying to think of the speech and just look to Jesus.

And then it was just the conclusion i was struggling with.
it was quite lame and cheesy.
Late night on Friday I was working on the speech while listening to a worship concert,
and i stopped what i was doing to just worship to an inspired song.

After that I re-typed my conclusion and it just felt right this time.
Or at least much better than the earlier cheesy version.

So this speech was semi-crafted with God.
it's pretty cool.
i still think it's not an "up there" speech,
but it's always an adventure to do this with God.
and i just hope the message goes out and gets planted into some hearts out there.
----------------------------

The contest emcee was pretty funny.
She briefed us and got some admin (speaking order, elegibility forms etc) done before the contest started,
and throughout the whole thing she was trying to get us to relax by saying "relax ah".
The funny thing was all of us were quite relaxed actually,
so the "relax ah" wasn't quite needed and anyhow
they weren't exactly sinking in.

It's like we were relaxed, and she kept reminding us "it's a contest, but no problem relax" until we quite stressed liao.

she was pretty cool though.
kudos for her efforts to help us "relax" :)

The table topics (impromptu speech) contest is the one i shunned the most.
You can't prepare for it and it's a heng suay thing.
The Basic Club got the topic "A fool and his gold are soon departed"
When it came to my turn (advanced club), the topic was "Love is a many splendoured thing"

When i saw the topic,
half the time i was wondering what "splendoured" meant
can i ignore it?
"love is a many thing?"
let's do that.
So i just whack lor.

So talk about love, and wonderful things about love...blah blah.

The first thing i did after getting off the stage was google to see what the phrase meant.
Heng sia, I nailed the meaning.
I don't even think i remember what i said on stage.

That's the thing with Table Topics.
It all goes by in a blur.
and before you know it,
you have a trophy in the hand.

Lawyers do very well in Table Topics by the way.
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Went to visit Hearing Impaired ah ma on Sunday.
She was telling us animatedly about how her 90 year old (?) sister challenged her to a physical fight in the morning.
"Of course i said no! She is fatter than me, just like you (points to me)...so of course i'll lose!"

How come I've become the benchmark for fat.
hmmm.
relax lei ah ma.