Humble Beginnings

2011-04-11T20:37:00.002+08:00

While watching the show called "Centurion" during the holidays, I encountered a very interesting and totally different form of leadership.

In the movie, this is what one of the man say about their general.

"In training he is our scholar,
At the feast he is our father,
In the ranks he is our brother.
And in battle he is the god we pray to save our souls."

Another says this.

"He is a ruthless, reckless bastard.
And I'd die for him without hesitation"

I think that this is one of the most fundamental aspects of being a leader, to be respected in the right places, and also to be in-tune with the people you lead.

I really admire the hierarchy of leadership that exists within the ranks of the armies of Ancient Rome. Whoever said the Romans never gave us anything lasting eh?

Invictus

2011-02-20T17:35:00.002+08:00

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

This encapsulates all that I think right now. Its an awesome poem!

Pre Cruise

2010-12-23T08:46:00.002+08:00

Once again, I promised somebody I'll do a post before I go on cruise, and so, here it is.

The only problem is that I have no idea what to write about. So, yeah. I was looking for inspirational stories for my Welcome Week booklet, and stumbled upon this story. And I felt that it was really meaningful, so I'm going to share it here.

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.
They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“It was great, Dad.”

“Did you see how poor people live?” the father asked.

“Oh yeah,” said the son.

“So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father.

The son answered: “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

“We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

“We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

“We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.”

The boy’s father was speechless.

Then his son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.”

I think this ties in very well with the lessons learnt in NLLC. And this also teaches us to cherish whatever we have, from the necessities in life, like food, to things we may often overlook when it is in abundance, but notice its absence when it is gone. Something like friendship.

So this Christmas, cherish the things that you have, the food you eat, the water you drink and the company of friends, for there are those out there who have none of this.

I just realise this is such a sad post. But oh well. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Helplessness

2010-12-19T20:07:00.000+08:00

Here's to the feeling of helplessness you feel when a friend is in need, but there is no way you can help.- It sucks.

20th NLLC 2010

2010-12-19T01:20:00.002+08:00

So quite recently, I've returned from a camp that I was reluctant and hesitant to go for in the first place. This was so as it was the first day of my holidays and I really wanted to go out with my friends, which I won't get the chance to since they were heading back to their countries or going on a long holiday. But I guess that everything happens for a reason. And this has been one of the more cathartic experiences that I have gotten throughout this convention. I'll explain more in a bit.

So on the first day, I was really reluctant, I didn't want to leave my family, I didn't want my dinner to finish. I just wanted to stay in Singapore and enjoy my holidays. But this feeling disappeared as I got closer and closer to Ipoh.Instead, a feeling of both expectancy and of fear arose in me. I expected this to be a good camp, as hindsight had shown me that Lasallian Encounter was awesome. But there was also fear that I will not be able to make friends as well as I did in previous camps. Also, I was really worried that I would not be able to fit in with the large group of Malaysians that we were expecting.

Good thing though, all these fears were all gone as soon as the Malaysians started flooding in. The first few people I knew, were my room mates, Willy and Shiuan, who were already in the room when I got there. Though they were quiet, I did manage to get a couple of decent conversation topics with them that day. I remember that I was really scared when Tze Thong walked into the room, as he looked big and scary. But of course, anyone who went for the convention would know, that he's an awesome guy, and really a great pleasure to talk to and really get to know, something I did throughout the convention. So the first day was really fun, great ice breaker games, got to know so many more people that way. It'll take me way too long to list out what we did everyday, but I think the main thing that I got out of the first day, was the recognition of a wider and larger La Sallian Community outside of Singapore, and also, I made lots of new friends from all over Malaysia.

So throughout the days, I had lots of fun, not only interacting with my new friends from Malaysia, but also learning more about the Lasallian mission. I feel that the most amazing activity was the Creative Workshop. This really pushed me out of my comfort zones as I am not a creative person, and trying to do creative things would have only led to disaster. But through this workshop, I feel that I have learnt a new way to express myself, a way that was never open to me before. But that aside, I had lots of fun doing all the activities. It was really fun doing the mirror thing with Deborah, playing the hand slapping thing with Tze Thong, and basically doing the Waka Waka dance with everyone! That would have been the highlight of the convention for me, in terms of fun at least.

On a more reflective side, I felt that the sessions that were held, especially the peer-led sharing on the different exposures was extremely enlightening as it showcased and highlighted issues that would otherwise have been lost or forgotten in a world where money and position are the new "in" things. Also, the reflections that were given to us were further effective in creating a sense of solidarity between ourselves, those around us, and those who were in need, the last, the lost and the least.

And thus ends my reflection on my NLLC experience. One last thought. I remember the feeling when the Singapore delegation got back to La Salle Centre after shopping for the entire day. We walked through SMI, and I was thinking to myself, that this will be the last time i'll walk through this shelter for a long time. And when we got to the window of the dining room, I expected to hear and see the racket of delegates chatting, playing games or simply just sitting around. In fact, all I saw were some OTs sitting around, and that really hit me. That the convention was over. It is impossible to summarise those wonderful 6 days I had the honor of sharing with my Malaysian brothers and sisters, but at least I've tried. I left Ipoh unwilling to go back to my family, unwilling to finish my dinner, and unwilling to go back to Singapore. During the convention, they spoke about Paradigm Shifts, if this wasn't a huge one, then I don't know what is anymore.

And in the words of the person I had a deal with to write this, and I'm glad I had that deal with her, as it has really helped me to relive the memories of that experience, it is possible to say these 5 words:

I think I miss it.

Actually, I don't have to think, I really do miss it.

And therefore, this post is dedicated to Deborah Yaw, you better have had a good sleep, cause I stayed up till 3am to finish this!!

Nothing left unsaid

2010-06-05T18:24:00.001+08:00

2010-05-25T21:16:00.003+08:00

2010-05-23T15:08:00.002+08:00

Inspired by the Music and Musical Night in School, these videos are extremely inspirational!

2010-05-21T23:42:00.002+08:00

Seeing that music is the window into the soul, I'm quite contented to just post videos here, and from time to time, maybe add a few words, but nothing too much! That is of course if anyone even reads this blog anymore!

Cheers!

2010-05-19T22:04:00.001+08:00

Hi all, who ever read my blog. I'm going to introduce you to a new blog, a really interesting one! Has lots of meaningful stuff on it, and is more awesome than mine.

http://blissfullyignorant.tumblr.com/

Enjoy

2010-05-17T19:02:00.003+08:00

"There is no more noble occupation in the world than to assist
another human being to help someone succeed."
- Alan Loy McGinnis

It really sucks knowing that there is a friend who is undergoing tough times, and you can't do very much to help. I really hate the feeling. There must be something I can do to help. There must be something I can say to make the pain disaooear or just get better. Why must life be so hard? Why can't there be a simple answer to everything? I feel so helpless, I feel so lost. What can I do?

2010-04-05T20:28:00.000+08:00

2010-03-22T21:50:00.002+08:00

So I was watching this on YouTube and I realised how interesting and meaningful this, otherwise funny parody really is. I think this video is self explanatory, and as I leave for Tioman tomorrow, the message that this video shows, the message of not letting the past stand in the way of our future will remain in my mind for the hours I'll spend on the road, and the at sea.

International Schools Track and Field Competition

2010-03-13T21:48:00.002+08:00

So after many months, I have finally decided to blog again. So, today and a couple of days back, many things hit me that got me thinking about my life. It was as if, throughout the whole day, messages kept hitting me over and over again, and they were usually links to each other. Call me one who thinks too much, but I guess that those messages that hit me today really does have an effect on my life, and got me thinking even more about my actions and stuff.

So it was during the International School Track and Field Competition, just before my team, which consisted of Koon Peng, Robert, Paul and myself, was about to run the 4x400m relay.So we were really scared before the race started, as from the looks of the competitors, we didn't think we had much of a chance.So we decided on a very interesting team philosophy "lose then lose, win then win". This shows how indifferent we were to the result, as long as each individual runner ran a good race and pushed themselves to the limit. Also, we stood firm on the thought that if we won, we would win as a team, and if we lose, we would lose as a team, and this really gave me comfort and determination to push one. As I was the second runner, and lined up on the track, ready for Paul to pass me the baton, one thought raced through my mind "God, don't let me mess this up, please, don't let me mess this up". As Paul drew closer, and I got the baton from him, my mind went blank and all I could remember for the first 200m was Koon Peng's encouraging voice, urging me on. When I overtook a runner, and as I got closer to another and the finish line, I regained my sense of thought and as the baton was passed, a sense of joy came over me. So what if I was not the first few people to finish, I did it! And that was all that mattered to me at that time. After that passing moment, I cheered my other team mates on as they ran.We all put in our best shot, and I was certain of it, the result wasn't good, but we did our best, and we weren't last. I felt so much like a winner after that, I really did, although we didn't win anything, the biggest challenge that we won, was the obstacle of ourselves. This is what got me thinking about all the troubles I have had recently, with friends and with school, how I should not let them hold me back.

As the special Olympic saying goes:"Let me win but if I can not win, let me be brave in the attempt", so this really gives me a sense of security that in life, you can't always be a winner, but as long as you so called "finish the race", the race of life, everything will be worthwhile. We should look forward to each day, and not look back!

2009-12-30T20:38:00.001+08:00

2009-12-28T09:42:00.000+08:00

After Exams

2009-11-28T11:33:00.002+08:00

So, the IGCSEs are over, and so is Rendezvous, so now, it is time for me to relax. Everything turned out well, but i'm still too lazy to blog, so more videos!

IGCSE

2009-10-24T11:17:00.001+08:00

So, my IGCSE starts on Tuesday, so this will be the last one before that. Just a couple of music videos, cause I'm too lazy to write anything.

York Hotel

2009-09-21T14:04:00.004+08:00

So, yesterday was my sister's birthday and so, we went to Sentosa for the Luge. I found it rather fun, although, being scared of heights, the chair lift really scared the life out of me. Imagine this, me, grabing on to the safety bar so tightly for the 5 minute chair lift. But anyway, this is not the reason why I'm blogging today. Yesterday, I went to York Hotel for the Penang Hawker's Food Fair. The place was so crowded that I had so much time to think of the following two equations in my head:

1) The amount of time spent waiting for your food is inversely proportional to the satisfaction gained out of it.

In other words, s= 1/t

Where t= time waited for food, and s being the satisfaction gained out of it.

2) The amount of time you have to put sauce on your plate of food must be less than or equal to the amount of time taken by the cook to make the next plate.

In other words, q <>

Where q is the amount of time taken to scoop sauce and t being the time taken to make the next plate.

This should be an indication of how long I had to wait for my food, considering that I was able to come up with these two equations. But overall, the food was good, and I'm getting fat!

Songs

2009-09-08T21:17:00.000+08:00

Apologies for the non-existence of a post on this blog for 2 months. I know I did promise Rome pictures but there is so many that I can't choose which one to put, plus I'm a lazy boy. Anyway, just a couple of nice music videos, very nice.
P.S. I wonder if anybody still reads this.

1,2,3,4

2009-07-06T19:12:00.001+08:00

Okay, I know i did promise the pictures from Rome, it is coming, soon, but for now, a nice song, really good and worth a listen! Enjoy! Ciao!

London

2009-06-27T15:15:00.027+08:00

After a long period of absence, I finally decided to blog again. Well, I have been procrastinanting since I was in London a week ago, and so, will blog about London and Rome just as an overview and not in too much details!

London

Was there from the 6th to the 13th of June, and was there again on the 18th and 19th. So, in London, spent alot of my time going sightseeing. Saw Buckingham palace, Trafalgar Square, British Museum, Tower of London and that sort of things. Also ate brilliant British cusine at Middle Temple and 15! The servings were huge but of course, being Ivor, I finished it all! From Black Pudding to Bangers and Mash, I loved them all! Even went strawberry picking, which is a heck of a hardwork but fun nonetheless. Really enjoyed by time around London, and meeting with a couple of my brother's friends. Romeo and Juliet at the Globe was great as well! Was really sad when I left London and will remember the fond memories experienced there! Such as the Tube Strike and other strikes around Parliment area!

So all these are pictures of the places I visited in London, have more, of course, but will try to upload them on Facebook. Really missed the place, and wouldn't mind going back again! The post of Rome should be up soon, I hope!

Songs

2009-05-22T21:28:00.000+08:00

Confirmation

2009-04-27T20:16:00.002+08:00

Well, i got confirmed on Saturday, 25th April at the Church of St Teresa's Church during the 6pm Mass. This signalled the start of something new, but also, the end of something i hold really dear to my heart. By being sealed with the Holy Spirit, I begun a new chapter in my life as a Catholic. I begin a new chapter of being a witness to Christ. However, with this, comes regrets. The Sealing with the Holy Spirit also signalled the end of my weekly classes. Those classes which i always took for granted, those that i would find any excuse to skip. Now, more than ever, i find myself missing it. I remember, a couple of weeks before the end of class, i really dreaded Confirmation. I really dreaded breaking the weekly routine of waking up early on Sunday mornings to attend these classes. I even went to the extent, for the first time in my life, to making cathetism class my first priority. Skipping LLTC retreat just to attend class and making the extra effort to turn up for class earlier. I also found myself spending more time hanging out with my classmates alot more. From just sitting down and talking over a meal to standing in the middle of the road, talking and joking about. I really have to thank the teachers for all these, for putting God into my life, for inspiring me to undertake great things for the glory of God and for teaching me more about Him. Thank you Dennis, Deborah and Uncle Sidney. Also, I would really like to thank all my classmates for making this 10 year journey of faith with me. Although some may have not been there from the start, it is really an honour to have made the journey with you. Annabeth, Caroline, Erika, Genevieve, Cassian, Gerrard, Ignatius, Joseph, Jean, Jeanette, Raphael, Shannon, Solomon and Zacharias. Also, many thanks to all those who were in the class but changed church. You've been part of the journey, and will never be forgotten. To end off, i really hope that everyone will remain true to the faith and be witnesses to Christ. We must never stray from the church and always remain in contact!

More Songs

2009-04-18T12:31:00.003+08:00

Here are more songs! As everyone can see, I'm too lazy to really post, but, I think music is a perfect way in which feelings can be expressed. Plus, it is so much easier! Enjoy!

Song

2009-04-16T22:02:00.001+08:00

A nice song, really means alot to me.

I have been listening to class 95 alot recently, and I think that the songs are really good, and that all should listen! Especially to the Love Songs!

2009-04-03T16:51:00.003+08:00

After a long absences, i am back to post a couple of songs which i feel are nice and relevant! More later!

The Week

2009-02-14T23:30:00.004+08:00

Well, I would be lying if i said that this was an uneventful week, so I shan't. This, in fact, has been an extremely trying week, which tested me physically, mentally and emotionally. So shall go one by one, starting with the physical aspect. I felt so much more lazy this week, skipped gym, and didn't push myself during strength and conditioning. So i felt very irritated with myself as i knew i could have done better. This led to the mental part. Already being so stressed out, I was furthur given the post of chairperson of the cultrual carnival in addition to chairperson of Hanoi plus, head of secretariat for LY. This also came around the time when i got my chinese results back. Not too good i would say, split me between taking first language or foregin for IGCSE. Also, it was the day i got back my badly done economics test. The next test which practically pushed me over the edge was the History. Being a fan of History, average marks weren't exactly what I expected, but what i got. So it really demoralized me alot. Then comes the emotional part. Well, basically, during the course of this week, I have decided to do something i know i should have done a long time ago. I finally did it, and i hope i will keep to it. So, basically, that is my week, totally stressed up, screwed up and whatever else can go up. Today is valentine's day but there is nothing special. Oh, before i forget, Brandon's party. Well, it was relatively a good party, despite of the hick ups here and there. Thanks to all who organised it. And also, thanks to Antonia, Hannah, Paul and Nicole Lim for the flowers! Thanks to Louisa, Hannah and Liz for the goodies! Thanks to Antonia(again), Paul(again), Anne, Isabelle and Perry for listening and for helping me out.

Pictures from Nagoya

2009-01-23T22:48:00.024+08:00

Okay, so basically, these are the pictures from Gero, at the place where we stayed!

On the way to the Hot Springs!

Don't Ask

Long Absence

2009-01-23T22:28:00.003+08:00

Okay, i do apologise for the late post, on both the Grade 7 Camp and for the pictures from Japan. Been really busy with homework, organising stuff and basically going through everyday life. So first of, Grade 7 Orientation Camp.

During the camp, I was part of the logistics team. I had to get everything which were required for the games and for the entire camp. So, on the first day of the camp, the 16th of January, I had to go down to toa payoh twice, with Jefri, to get some stuff that was short in supply. I really enjoyed the walks as I felt that I got to know Jefri alot more on our way, to and fro toa payoh. So, after all the logistical stuff were settled, it was dinner time. So i had my dinner while having a briefing for the night games. The plan was for the facilitators to go around the school, scaring the participants as they venture around the school in groups. Me and Caleb, being really bored, and not having a mask or anything, decided to wrap a shirt over our head and run around the school, carrying guns which we confiscated off some Grade 7s. We were like terrorist of some kind. It was really fun as we got quite a number of people to scream when we ran past them, shouting at the top of our voice and shooting the gun. Next, we decieded to change our weapon of choice to the chair. We started running around with a chair over our necks. After the game, all of us were half dead with exhaution from the running. We had a briefing and after which, I joined Benjamin Teo and Isabelle's group for a sharing. Had a rather rushed one as I came in half way through it. So, after that, had supper, and had our final debrief for the night. So, during the night, Caleb, David, Ricardo and I decided to go take a shower, as we were stinky and stuff. However, we decided to check on the water bomb fillers first. We did so and ended up staying there for 4+ hours, carrying tubs of water bombs all the way down to the basketball courts. We were so exhausted around 5.45am that we decided to sleep at the fitness corner. We slept from 6am to 6.30am, where we moved up to the secretariat, and then, subsequently back to the basketball courts for morning PT. Not going to elaborate as i can see that the post is getting very long. So, the highlights of the second day were the flour fight, down at the upper field, where people were just throwing flour at people, and having lots of fun, and to the other extreme, the water bomb fight, which consisted of people throwing about 1000 water bombs, filled that morning, at each other. Lots of fun, lots of laughter, lots of fellowship. So, that basically rounds up the second day, which ended the camp off with a reflection by Gerard and Louisa. Although, there were many times when i was annoyed at some people, but overall, the camp was a huge sucess and this was all thanks to the Organizing Committie, the Facilitators and the Participants!

Pictures- Kyoto

2008-12-31T13:22:00.018+08:00

Okay, as promised, here are the picures. These were taken in Kyoto. They are in random order cause something kept going wrong, somehow. So enjoy!! More from Nagoya and Tokyo coming up!

12 Days of Christmas

2008-12-29T18:37:00.002+08:00

The background behind the 12 Days of Christmas song.

From 1558 until 1829 Roman Catholics in England were not allowed to practice their faith openly. During that era someone wrote 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' as a kind of secret catechism that could be sung in public without the risk of persecution. The song has two levels of interpretation: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of the church. Each element in the carol is a code word for a reality of our faith.

The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ.
The two turtledoves are the Old and New Testaments.
Three French hens stand for faith, hope and love.
The four calling birds are the four Gospels.
The five gold rings recall the Torah (Law) the first five book of the Old Testament.
The six geese a-laying stand for the six days of creation.
Seven swans a-swimming represent the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit.
The eight maids a-milking are the eight beatitudes.
Nine ladies dancing? These are the nine fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5).
The ten lords a-leaping are the Ten Commandments.
Eleven pipers piping stand for the eleven faithful disciples.
Twelve drummers drumming symbolize the 12 points of belief in the Apostles' Creed."

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-28T01:26:00.000+08:00

Here is a short post, wishing all those, if any, who visit this site a Very MERRY CHRISTMAS! And if anyone says that i'm late in my greetings, i say that christmas is 8 days, not one!

Land of Rising Sun

2008-12-28T00:34:00.002+08:00

So anyway, i know this is very late, but i feel the urge to blog about it, briefly though. So, as some may have known, i went to Japan on the 15th and returned on the 22nd. Will blog about it day by day!

Monday-15th Dec

Took a 11.45pm flight to Tokyo from Singapore. Flight was good, as i took SQ. Though the Japanese breakfast was quite crap. So got to Tokyo on the 16th.

Tuesday-16th Dec

So, continuing from the top, arrived in Tokyo around 7am+. Got through immigration and customs quite swiftly. Took a bullet train aka "faster train" aka shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, which was the destination for the day. When there, we checked into the hotel and went to some temple up a hill, which was very high up and very tiring to walk up. The best thing about it all, was that the weather was nice and cool so you didn't really sweat. It was disgustingly dry though. After that, went to the underground shopping centre near the hotel for dinner. Quite good, can't remember what i had though. After that, went back to the hotel, and knocked out around 8pm. By the way, the sun starts to set in Japan around 4pm cause it was late autumn when we went.

Wednesday- 17th Dec

Woke up early, went to do a variety of stuff on this day. Went shopping, i think, or at least my parents and my sister, while me and my brothers stayed in the hotel. This took place in the morning. Also, seeing that there was a 10 story Isetan near the hotel, my mum went on shopping spree, and bought nothing. After that, went to a castle in Kyoto. Quite nice, and beautifully built, with many different paintings. Can't really remember where we went to next. I think to a shrine, a big huge garden and a temple. What i can remember for sure is that we had curry rice for lunch. Good, and if i may say, better than my brother's. After all that sight seeing, went to a national museum, which was close, and where my phone totally ran out of battery. So that rounds up the day.

Thursday- 18th Dec

Woke up even earlier i think. Had to catch a shinkansen to Nagoya, which was a little up north from Kyoto. Upon reaching Nagoya, we went to another castle, to walk around, before heading back to the station to buy bento boxes to eat on the train. They are not bad. Had to get back on the shinkansen to go to Gero, where we would be staying in a hotel with hotsprings!! So, there, we had to wear traditional clothing around the room, and we all stayed in one room. We even had a 16 course dinner in the room! So, out of the three hotsprings in the hotel, i went for all three! Won't elaborate on the hotsprings cause it is suppose to be a private affair. All i can say is that it is a nice experience. The ones i went to on this day were the one with the good view and the open air one. And before i forget, we tried to walk out of the hotel in the traditional clothes which was thin and not really tied right. And when i walked out, there was a huge wind, and i don't think i need to elaborate furthur.

Friday- 19th Dec

Woke up early, for breakfast, followed by a hotspring bath in the cedar wood one. The largest and nicest of them all! After that, went to the train station to take the shinkansen back up to Tokyo, where we would be spending the last days of our trip. So, we went to our hotel, checked in again, and went for dinner at a place nearby. Can' t remember where though.

Saturday- 20th Dec

Woke up really early. Took a subway down to the biggest fish market in the world. Saw huge huge fish, and it was just huge. Got sick of fish after a while though. After that, went to somewhere to walk around, and shop a little. There, we had lunch. Then, we decided to go to shop at some funny place, where all the teens hang out and we had sushi there. After that, went back and slept. Watched Czar Putin for a while.

Sunday- 21st Dec

Woke up early, again. Went for mass at the Fransiscan Chapel Centre. Mass was in english. After that, went to Disney Sea. Sat on a couple of rides, thought much time was wasted queing for the ride. One ride we sat on had a 2hour queue and it didn't even last 1min! Really wasted! Anyway, had lots of fun in disney sea. Will put pics up soon, i hope.

Monday- 22nd Dec

Got packed and everything, got to the airport, and did last minute shopping for some friends. Had breakfast, then boarded the plane. Service was crap on board, had to ask 3 times for a cup of water, they ran out of Japanese food, so served me International food which was crap, got ignored by a steward, who was rather rude. So due to all these, i hated the flight back. I managed to finish 3 shows though. So now, i'm back! Home Sweet Home!

2008-11-30T19:40:00.002+08:00

Wonderful Tonight

Right here waiting

Night of all Nights

2008-11-29T15:40:00.002+08:00

Well, school is finally out, and i finally have the "motivation" to revive my blog. So, first things first. I shall blog about the End of Year Party. It started off at about 7pm. But before that, had quite a bit of work to do. Had to supervise the setting up of the tables and chairs and the laying out of the food. The food was excellent. After dinner, had some songs. Abel had to "sabo" me, but everything went fine in the end. Had a wonderful dance to the tune of "Wonderful Tonight" which i thought was really good. Thanks! Anyway, had two table games, which i participated very slightly, except for someone taking my tie off me just to play the game. The dance ended on a high note, with people jumping around and what not. It ended around 11pm, where a couple of helpful souls helped the council to clear up the area. Thank God my parents picked me up, and dropped Charissa back home as well. Overall, the party was great, will have alot of good memories, especially one of them. Went home, and just fell asleep as had to wake up early again the next day.

Now, moving back in time again, a little. My end of year assessment. Okay, for this, i will rattle all the marks out by heart, as i can't find the booklet with my assessment in it.

English- 6A

First Language Chinese- 5A

History- 6B

Economics- 6A

Co-Ordinated Science (Dr Hjorth)- 6B

Co-Ordinated Science(Mr Bowen)- 7A

E-Math- 5A

A-Math-5A

PE- B

Okay, so if you are wondering what all the letters and numbers mean, i will briefly explain them.

The numbers represent the grade i achievement, equivalent to the A1, A2, etc. However, 7 is the highest and 1 is the lowest. Which means that i average a 6 in the assessment.

The letter represents the amount of effort i put into the subject. Where A is the highest effort and D is the lowest.

Exams

2008-10-31T20:33:00.002+08:00

So, very quickly, i facilitated LLTC B during my October holidays. Not going into details as I am currently in exam mode and can't function properly. So anyway, really enjoyed LLTC, thought that I had a really good group and thanks to all the OTs and the participants for making it such a good camp. The best camp I ever facilitated!!

So basically, at this point, I have completed a majority of my papers, with A Math on Monday and Chinese First Language Paper 3 on Tuesday. After that, I will be free, unlike the caged bird. That is all for now!!

2008-10-10T22:06:00.001+08:00

Watch the video, it is rather self explanatory if you understand what it means. Open your mind and try to understand

what the video truly means.

2008-10-06T20:51:00.002+08:00

Okay, so i have noticed a long absence on my part and although i just came back from Sumatra last week, my brain is not functioning properly enough to blog about it, so i shall just type out what i read on a book about Padre Pio and share it with everyone. The words in white are that of a young person, you, perhaps, and those in red are God's words. I really think this means a lot to people, especially to that of a young catholic who is struggling to see God in their life. It is really worth the read.

For You, Young Person

Lord, I am here before you to ask a question: " What must I do to live and grow in Your life and to obtain eternal life?" It is written: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might and You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matt 22,37-40)

Lord, how can I love you if I do not see you and do not hear you? You say that you do not see Me, that you do not hear Me, but if so, why do you not ask Me to be seen and heard? When I was on Earth I opened the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. Ask Me to increase your faith

Lord, You are right. I believe You exist, I discover You in the beauty ; order and perfection of creation, but increase my faith so I can discover You present in my life, in that little consecrated Host with which you desire to come within me and I can love you. See how the light is already penetrating into your heart? Stay here beside Me and I will reveal a great secret to you... It is I who loved you first... It is I who continue to love you... Let yourself be loved only by Me... Open your heart to Me...

Lord, excuse me, but how can I open my heart to you? Observe the commandments.

Lord, I am sincere; Your commandments, which perhaps I cannot remember very well anymore, take away every chance of fun I have. I have a great desire for freedom in my heart. Tell Me, are you happy then when you say that you have fun committing a sin?

I hear that I cannot hide anything from You. I try to laugh and to joke but there is always a great emptiness and a great sadness in my heart. I avoid thinking I am always on the mobile phone or listening to music at high volume, or even drinking in the pub. And this is freedom to you?

I do not know anymore. I seem to be looking for something, something which will gratify all my desires but I do not know what it is and where I can find it. Look at me. Raise your eyes to this little Host... do you not feel at peace? Your soul thirsts for Me; you thirst for God. You look for Me ut cannot find Me in the things which surround you.

So where can I find you then? Let Me repeat, observe My commandments. Did I not say that those who love Me will keep My words, and My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them? (John 12, 23)

Lord Jesus, You know that Your commandments are too difficult to be put into practice. What can I do? Did I not say that my yoke is easy and my burden light? (Matt 11, 30). Have faith. I will be with you... I who am the Almighty. Only when I am in your heart will you have the joy of living in true freedom, despite life's difficulties. You will no longer be a slave to things, but will server yourself in everything in accordance with the purpose for which they were created. You will also love your neighbors but will love them with My love. Now that you know everything, never let yourself be deceived by false masters. Clasps Me to you and we will walk together on this Earth. Look, it was My desire to be in this Sacrament and make Myself your food and be close to you in a unique manner so that we will be together for all eternity where that which has been prepared for those who love God cannot be seen by any eye, nor heard by any ear not ever enter into man's heart ( 1 Cor 2, 9)

2008-09-14T16:51:00.002+08:00

Okay, finally updating my blog after a period of absence. Being selective, i shall only blog about days where something actually happened.

4th September- Went to register my IC. Much thanks to my dad for sending me there, registering my IC with me and then sending me to school even though he was late for work. Got to school at 8.45 and the debate thingy only started at 10. So i sat in Mr Anandraj's class playing with my computer and stuff. Had a debate practice for the class' team and ate Mc Donald's. Thanks to Louisa for the cake.

5th September- LLTC B OT Retreat at SPS. Had a nice and rather relaxing retreat in LaSalle Centre to prepare for LLTC B. Did my reflections which i think wasn't as good as expected, but nonetheless, it was a learning experience.

6th September- Happy Birthday to me? Haha, still had retreat on that day. Got SMSes from Louisa, my family, Antonia, Nicole Lim, Tim and John. Was threatened to get beaten up by John Koh during the retreat. Ricardo punched me 15 times and so did my brother when i got back. Thanks to Nicole, Louisa, my brothers and sister, my parents and to my aunties and uncles for their presents and ang paos and cake etc. Went to Hill Top Restaurant for tepanyaki. Super shiok!

7th September- Went for Tim's, Max's, Masheyr's, Ian Kwan's and Isabelle's confirmation. After that, went for dinner with my family.

12th September- Collected my IC!!

13th September- Went for the Penang Hawkers food buffet at York Hotel. Ate until i nearly exploded. After that, went to Takashimaya to do groceries. My brother bought me a leather wallet there.

So that is what the past 2 weeks were like for me.

Good to read.

2008-08-25T18:35:00.002+08:00

once upon a time
a man got knocked down by a truck

he then was sent to the hospital
he found out that he was paralysed from the neck all the way down

he lay on his bed
and waited for a miracle to happen

one day,
he had a patient next to him

a friend
he could talk to

his new friend was fun and cheerful and positive
he talked about all the wonderful things outside this hospital

about the flowers and trees
of children playing and laughing

about the stars and moon
and of falling rain.

the man soon got really jealous of his friend
jealous that he was able to be near a window to experience all these exciting things

everyday, as he lay there on his bed
he grew more and more angry and jealous of his friend

one night,
his friend was coughing badly

he woke up, hearing him cough
"would you help me called the nurse?" his friend plead

he remembered how much he hated him
and ignored him

in a few minutes
there was dead silence

the next morning
the nurse wheeled the bed out

he felt happy and asked the nurse
"may i be put next to the window?"

the nurse looked at him and said
"there isnt any window!"

he was shocked
"but that man could see everything that was outside of this hospital! he told me all about it!"

"yes, i understand, it is a shame how a good man like him has passed on," she said
"but he is blind, he just said all those to cheer you up."

because of his jealousy and anger
the man lost a friend.

MORAL OF THE STORY
~be happy with what you have

Adapted from http://diornikkie.blogspot.com/

Good to read.

2008-08-25T18:35:00.000+08:00

Good to think about.

2008-08-17T14:49:00.003+08:00

I got this from an email and
i really think that it is worth
some thinking about.
On this Earth... This transitory lifetime..

Inspiring

2008-08-11T18:16:00.004+08:00

Very inspiring and touching videos. Worth the watch.

A Long Absence

2008-08-07T19:44:00.002+08:00

So, many interesting things, and uninteresting things happened over the last 2 weeks, but i have been over my head with studying and homework to blog about it. I just finished a Math Test today, and I hope i did alright. Just going to list out a few key things that happened last week. Dissected a lung during Biology, Antonia lied to me about her birthday, very sorry i didn't get anything for you yet, LLTC B OT Meeting and that is about it.

Now on to the current stuff. Had basketball today, and it was so humid that my shirt was soaked with sweat after the training. Mr Toh actually said that I was improving. Brandon Young, a fag from SJI and formerly from SMS, came to the school on Monday. Planning to start a Legion of Mary. We need a group of committed people for this! Okay, that is about it. National Day tomorrow and some women wants to paint my pants white cause i don't have white pants and another, wants to lend me her skirt tomorrow. Happy National Day! Long Weekend! A Math Test next week! Chinese Test in 2 weeks! Someone please kill me!

2008-07-23T18:36:00.004+08:00

We try to keep God in church on Sunday morning,

Maybe, Sunday night...

And, in the unlikely event of a midweek service.

  We do like to have Him around during sickness,

And, of course, when we face problems in life.

However, we don't have time, or room, for Him during school or play.

Because that's the part of our lives we think that we can, and should, handle on our own.

May God forgive me for ever thinking,

That there is a time or place where,

He is not to beFIRSTin my life.

We should always have time to remember all he has done for us.
Jesus said, 'If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.'

He is my source of existence and Savior.

He keeps me functioning each and every day. Without him, I am nothing. But, with Christ, he strengthens me. Phil 4:13:
I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

Read this poem : I knelt to pray but not for long,I had too much to do.I had to hurry and get to workFor bills would soon be due.So I knelt and said a hurried prayer,
And jumped up off my knees.
My Christian duty was now done
My soul could rest at ease.
All day long I had no time
To spread a word of cheer.No time to speak of Christ to friends,
They'd laugh at me I'd fear.

No time, no time, too much to do, That was my constant cry,
No time to give to souls in need But at last the time, the time to die.

I went before the Lord, I came, I stood with downcast eyes. For in his hands God held a book;It was the book of life.

God looked into his book and said 'Your name I cannot find.
I once was going to write it down...
But never found the time'
And do you think sometimes :

Why is it so hard to tell the truth but yet so easy to tell a lie?

Why are we so sleepy in church but right when the sermon is over we suddenly wake up?

Why is it so hard to talk about God but yet so easy to talk about nasty stuff?

Why is it so boring to look at a Christian magazine, but yet so easy to look at a nasty one?

Why is it so easy to delete a Godly e- mail, but yet we forward all of the nasty ones?

Why are the churches getting smaller but yet the bars and dance clubs are getting larger?
May God keep you and bless you. Hope you are all as blessed as I was from this story. I wonder how many people will delete this without reading it because of the title on it?

Something for you to read :There once was a man named George Thomas, pastor in a small New England town. One Easter Sunday morning he came to the Church carrying a rusty, bent, old bird cage, and set it by the pulpit. Eyebrows were raised and, as if in response, Pastor Thomasbegan to speak...'I was walking through town yesterday when I saw a young boy coming toward me swinging this bird cage. On the bottom of the cage were three little wild birds, shivering with cold and fright. I stopped the lad and asked, 'What you got there, son?' 'Just some old birds,' came the reply.

'What are you gonna do with them?' I asked.
'Take 'em home and have fun with 'em,' he answered 'I'm gonna tease 'em and pull out their feathers to make 'em fight. I'm gonna have a real good time' 'But you'll get tired of those birds sooner or later. What will you do?'

'Oh, I got some cats,' said the little boy. 'They like birds. I'll take 'em to them.'

The pastor was silent for a moment. 'How much do you want for those birds, son?'

'Huh?? !!! Why, you don't want them birds, mister. They're just plain old field birds. They don't sing. They ain't even pretty!'

'How much?' the pastor asked again.

The boy sized up the pastor as if he were crazy and said, '$10?'

The pastor reached in his pocket and took out a ten dollar bill. He placed it in the boy's hand. In a flash, the boy was gone.

The pastor picked up the cage and gently carried it to the end of the alley where there was a tree and a grassy spot Setting the cage down, he opened the door, and by softly tapping the barspersuaded the birds out, setting them free.

Well, that explained the empty bird cage on the pulpit, and then the pastor began to tell this story.

One day Satan and Jesus were having a conversation. Satan had just come from the Garden of Eden, and he was gloating and boasting. 'Yes, sir, I just caught the world full of people down there. Set me a trap, used bait I knew they couldn't resist. Got 'em all!'

'What are you going to do with them?' Jesus asked.

Satan replied, 'Oh, I'm gonna have fun! I'm gonna teach them how to marry and divorce each other, how to hate and abuse each other, how to drink and smoke and curse. I'm gonna teach them how to invent guns and bombs and kill each other. I'm really gonna have fun!'

'And what will you do when you get done with them?' Jesus asked. 'Oh, I'll kill 'em,' Satan glared proudly. 'How much do you want for them?' Jesus asked.

'Oh, you don't want those people. They ain't no good. Why, you'll take them and they'll just hate you. They'll spit on you, curse you and kill you. You don't want those people!!'

'How much?' He asked again.

Satan looked at Jesus and sneered,'All your blood, tears and your life.'
  Jesus said,'Done!'

Then He paid the price.

The pastor picked up the cage he opened the door and he walked from the pulpit.

Isn't it funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell? Isn't it funny how someone can say 'I believe in God' but still follow Satan, who, by the way, also 'believes' in God.

Very relevant in today's life.

2008-07-23T18:35:00.001+08:00

Don't ask me why, but I just felt like posting this song. It is the discovery channel song and it is really nice.

Lyrics

t never gets old huh?
Nope
It kinda make you wanna..break into song?
Yep
I love the mountains
I love the clear blue skies
I love big bridges
I love when great whites fly
I love the whole world
And all its sights and sounds
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
I love the ocean
I love real dirty things
I love to go fast
I love egyptian kings
I love the whole world
and all its craziness
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
I love tornadoes
I love Arachnids
I love hot magma
I love the giant squids
I love the whole world
Its such a brilliant place
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada

The Week

2008-07-20T20:33:00.002+08:00

Okay, i feel obliged to blog about something but am supposed to be studying for a Trigo. A math test tmr. So I shall cut to the chase and start on Friday.

On Friday, we had a class play. I was the narrator and as i always do, i said my rubbish lines as Anne Marie puts it. Class play went well enough. Now skipping to Biology. We dissected a sheep's heart during the lesson. Very fun and interesting. I managed to stick my finger and the scalpel through a number of vessels and see them poking out inside the heart. I found out that i would never be a surgeon due to my inferior cutting skills. Should be getting the pictures of that soon enough.

Saturday was my Grand Father's birthday so we went for Japanese after Mass. Ate so much tempura and soft shell crab and a whole host of other things. I know what you are thinking Jian Bin, if you even read this blog. So had a good dinner, went home, played Transport Tycoon then went to sleep. Just as I was sleeping, my whole throat swelled up and I began to sweat. Note that the air con was on. My dad took a look at me and said that i may have toncilities so he gave me an anti biotic and a panadol and sent me back to sleep.

Sunday, woke up for prata. My throat actually healed! Okay, went for cathetism class. Did a self test thingy. Came home, studied, finished some homework, stressed over certain stuff and played computer. Math test tmr, got to go study.

Bible Quiz

2008-07-13T19:52:00.002+08:00

Okay, after a long period of stagnation, i am finally blogging! School has started, obviously, and i am getting more stressed by the day. So much so that i keep thinking that i always forget something, which in fact is true most of the time. So, being the lazy guy that i am, i shall blog about the debate competition yesterday and the Bible knowledge quiz today.

Okay, so the Beurel Debating Championship's semi finals and finals were yesterday. Not going to say much except that in between the 2 hour preparation time for the Grand Finals, we were watching Friends and some comedian in the class. That was how bored we were. Catholic High won in the end and i dare say, the speakers were ***. Censored to prevent any *** from reporting my blog. Rushed down to church after that.

Today was the Bible Knowledge Quiz and i was part of it. So i got a group of the "smartest" minds ranging from K2 to Sec 3. I was given some very hard question for the individual round and i ended up saying seaside!! That was a stupid answer but it did make the audience laugh. When it got to the by level round, I didn't really bother answering the question, if i remember correctly. When it came to the group round, I ended up answering every question for the group. There was one question, What are the synoptic gospels. This was an ambiguous question and I thought the answer was Luke and Matthew. I had a reasonable argument there but was still marked wrong for that! And it was a debatable topic, bloody hell unreasonable. Okay, pass that, my group won and i was pronounced a sore winner by my classmates, mostly Gabriel. After that went home and had Dim Sum at Conrad hotel for lunch with my Aunty. After that, came home, did Chinese, and went to the gym. Had pork chops for dinner.

School Opens

2008-06-29T19:52:00.002+08:00

Okay, so school starts tomorrow! And due to my ever growing laziness, i have not blog for quiet a while after a short spur of posting 3 times a day for one day. And those who actually read this blog would know that it is virtually impossible for me to do that everyday. So, i shall be lazy again and just blog about the last week of the holiday.

Monday- Went down to SPS and someone was whining at me for having to go down for my Legion of Mary meeting. So, basically went down to SPS, talked to Brother Edward and stuff. Wanted to go to the canteen but quickly turned back to the Brother's Quarters upon seeing Mr Lak there. So attended meeting, rather fun as the vice president was shocked at seeing me and the members kept pestering him to shorten the meeting. Oh, by the way, I was the president of that group for Legion in Sec 1. So after the meeting, went downstairs and attended the meeting of OLOTS. The officers were stepping down that day and thus, the passionate speeches. Met old friends. After the OLOTS meeting, went back up to the Brother Quarter's and talked to Brother Edward some more before heading home.

Tuesday- Paul and Abel came to my house. Paul came early and while waiting for Abel, we ended playing chinese chess, i got trashed, on a ancient board that we were actually better off drawing it ourself. Then suddenly, Louisa started daoing me for some reason. She wouldn't even pick up her phone when me and Paul called. She finally did after a while. After getting bored of chinese chess, we went to play Snooker in the snooker room while waiting. When Abel finally came, he came down to the snooker room and we played a game before going up to my house to eat. We had chicken sandwich for lunch. After that we went upstairs and started to study. Me and Paul did our History and Abel did his Math. After a while, we got bored. Abel started chatting under my name and Paul started playing the guitar. After that, at Abel's urging, we continued with our work. After a few hours, or minutes of that, we went down for dinner. We had simple fried rice for dinner. After dinner,we came back up, finished up as much as possible before going down to the snooker room again.We played until Abel had to go. We walked Abel down the hill and waited for him to get a taxi. Bloody hard to get one down there as when we were on one side of the road, all the taxis were on the other, and vice versa. So, after Abel got his taxi, Paul and I went back up too play snooker. After that, I waited with him for his dad at the guardhouse.

Wednesday- Officially finished all my homework on this day!!!!!!! Was super happy and slacked through the rest of the holiday.

Thursday- Didn't do anything on this day, I think. Wait, i collected my new pair of spectacles!!

Friday- Went for hospital visit. After that, when i finally got home, did nothing. Finished the Dawn of War: War Hammer 40 000 campaign!!

Saturday- Usual saturday routine. Served mass and Novena. After Mass, went to Orchard to get groceries and to eat. Went to Vivo after that as my dad wanted to get a new HD Box for the house. Had to wait for 1 hour just to get it. Got a new Sigg Bottle!!

Sunday- Nearly woke up late for cathetism class! Half way through lesson, the Sec 1 class joined us and a couple of my classmates shared on their experience of the Pre Confirmation Camp. After that sang a song and class was over. Had meeting after that. Was super irritated by the younger servers who would not listen to me and was irritating me that I fled to Fr Romeo's office to seek refuge. When meeting finally started, managed to get the kids quiet. Fr Damian gave us 2 boxes of Ferrero Roche( Don't correct me, you know who you are!!). The servers totally forgot about it so about 5 people, me included, enjoyed an entire box and being nice, we put one box in the sarcristy.

Argh!! School starts tomorrow!!! Better than rotting at home, but will miss the luxury and the carefree lifestyle!

Quotes

2008-06-19T21:38:00.004+08:00

Okay, i know that it has been less than an hour since i last posted but since i am bored, i shall put down a couple of inspiring quotes. Enjoy!!

Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.
Albert Einstein

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.
William Arthur Ward

Every artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

First say to yourself what you would be;
and then do what you have to do.
Epictetus

If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes.
St. Clement of Alexandra

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore,
is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.
William B. Sprague

Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Harold R. McAlindon

A leader is a deal in hope.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Foot Prints in the Sand

2008-06-19T21:21:00.005+08:00

Okay, so in a bid to keep my blog updated, and since i have no motivation to actually type stuff out, i shall just post about this thing which is known to most, if not all the readers of my blog. I am posting these more or less due to my boredom. So don't complain about it's monotony!

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND- 3 versions, 3 authors, 1 inspirational poem.

Footprints in the Sand

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.

This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord,

“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”

The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”

Mary Stevenson, 1936

Footprints
Also Known As "I Had a Dream"

One night I dreamed a dream.
I was walking along the beach with my Lord. Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to me and one to my Lord.

When the last scene of my life shot before me I looked back at the footprints in the sand. There was only one set of footprints. I realized that this was at the lowest and saddest times of my life. This always bothered me and I questioned the Lord about my dilemma.

"Lord, You told me when I decided to follow You, You would walk and talk with me all the way. But I'm aware that during the most troublesome times of my life there is only one set of footprints. I just don't understand why, when I need You most, You leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you, never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you."

Margaret Fishback Powers, 1964

Footprints

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed He was walking along the beach with the LORD. Across the sky flashed scenes from His life. For each scene He noticed two sets of footprints in the sand. One belonging to Him and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene of His life flashed before Him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of His life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of His life.

This really bothered Him and He questioned the LORD about it. LORD you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me.

The LORD replied, my precious, precious child, I Love you and I would never leave you! During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.

Carolyn Carty, 1963

2008-06-19T14:52:00.000+08:00

Once upon a time there were a bunch of tiny frogs.... who arranged a running competition.
The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower.
A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants....
The race began.....
Honestly: No one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower.
You heard statements such as: "Oh, WAY too difficult!!"
"They will NEVER make it to the top."
or: "Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!"
The tiny frogs began collapsing.
One by one....
Except for those, who in a fresh tempo, were climbing higher and higher....
The crowd continued to yell, "It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!"
More tiny frogs got tired and gave up....
But ONE continued higher and higher and higher....
This one wouldn't give up! At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower.
Except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top!
THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it?
A contestant asked the tiny frog how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal? It turned out.... That the winner was DEAF!!!!
The wisdom of this story is: Never listen to other people's tendencies to be negative or pessimistic....
because they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes away from you --
the ones you have in your heart!
Always think of the power words have.
Because everything you hear and read will affect your actions!
Therefore: ALWAYS be....POSITIVE!
And above all: Be DEAF when people tell YOU that you cannot fulfill your dreams!

Adapted from http://michaelpatricksung.blogspot.com/

3rd Week Of Holiday

2008-06-18T22:55:00.002+08:00

Okay, despite of my ever growing laziness, i shall blog at the urging of others. No names to be mentioned, they know who they are. So anyway, it is now the third week of my holiday and i am as bored as ever! Shall blog from the point just after my server's camp.

14th June- Went to IHM to give a small sharing for the Holy Spirit Church pre confirmands. I was actually expecting to give the talk to Sec 3s, but it seems that Brother Edward got it wrong, and so i gave the sharing to the Sec 2s. It was a huge class! 54 people, compared to the 17 i have in my class! Okay, so basically, the sharing went rather well, the Sec 2s are a rather rowdy and smut bunch. You could see them getting bored during Brother Edward's talk. After the sharing, we went to Jurong West, the Choice Retreat House, where we had to drop someone off. Then, we went to the market a few metres away from my dad's clinic to have a proper lunch. After that Brother sent me back to my own church. After that, the normal saturday routine applies, served Novena and Mass. This time did not threaten my resignation from the servers.

15th June- Was woken up bright and early by my uncle for breakfast at Sloane's Court. Had an excellent breakfast. Sausages, bacon, egg, toast and a whole pot of coffee!! After that went home and basically slacked all the way until after lunch. Went to Audio House to get a new TV. After a decade without buying a TV, my dad took a heck of a long time to make his decision. Went home after that and met my God Father at my house. After that, had dinner at Novena then headed home to sleep.

16th June- Went for a movie with my Brother. Watched Indiana Jones. It wasn't as bad as i expected it to be. The new TV was already there when we got home and we started admiring it. Not bad i should say. Excellent choice.

17th June- First time in 3 weeks that i actually touched my Math Books!! So, studied all morning and lost motivation to do so in the afternoon. After that, had an extremely filling dinner. Fish & Chips, cooked by my brother. After dinner, I had to rush down to SJI to meet Louisa there but i was late so she kindly offered to give me a lift from Orchard. So I met her there and her mum kindly sent us to SJI for the Heritage Play. I was late due to my own under estimation of time. So, at SJI, met a few old friends. Friends i haven't seen in 2 years! And a few of the facilitators. The Heritage Play was excellent! Very well done despite of the useless sound system of SJI's LT1. That is why SPS is so much better! After the Heritage Play, Louisa's mum kindly sent me to the bus stop opposite Novena so that i could take a bus back. Got back before 11pm which is good.

18th June- Woke up late today. Had lunch just before saying good bye to my parents who would be away in Bintan for a few days. So now, i rule my parent's room. I have 5 pillows to myself, my laptop and a tv right in front of me!! Living the high life in a sense:).

Stupid Quiz!!

2008-06-17T23:28:00.000+08:00

RULES:
1. Put Your iTunes, Windows Media Player, ETC on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.
5. Put this on your journal.

Okay, before I start this, this is a warning, the vast majority of my songs are religious, so don’t cry when you see themJ

1. If someone says, "Is this okay?" You say?
All My Days- Dan Schutte

(What the hell!! I didn’t even know I had this song!!)

2.How would you describe yourself?
Save Us O Lord- Bob Dufford

3.What do you like in a girl/guy?
Forever I Will Sing- M.D Ridge

Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord

4.How do you feel today?
I Will Run To You- Darlene Zschech

And I will run to your words of truth

5.What is your life's purpose?
Condero De Dios- Can’t be bothered to type out

( This is not even in ENGLISH!!)

6.What is your motto?
Gather Us Together- Owen Alstott

7. What do your friends think of you?
Unbelievable- Craig David

(Finally!! The first unreligious song!!)

8. What do you think of your parents?
Give Thanks- Unknown

9.What do you think about very often?
Any Dream Will Do- Joseph and the Techni- Coloured Coat

“Far far away, someone was weeping but the world was sleeping”

10.What is 2 + 2?."
Whispering Hope- Anne Murray

11.What do you think of your best friend?
At The Beginning- Unknown

“Here we are, and I’m suddenly standing at the beginning with you”

12.What do you think of the person you like?
Perfect- Simple Plan

“Do you think I’m wasting my time doing things I want to do?”

13.What is your life story?
Pieta- Tom Kendzia

14.What do you want to be when you grow up?
Lead Me Lord- Unknown
“The meek shall come to rule the world”

15.What do you think of when you see the person you like?
I Am The Resurrection- J. Anderson

“ All those who follow me will have new life”

16.What will you dance to at your wedding?
Ever Ever After- Carrie Underwood
( I should change it to my ordination!!)

17.What will they play at your funeral?
Tounge Tied- Faber Drive

“I need a little more help than a little bit”

18.What is your hobby/interest?
Lord, I Hope this Day is Good- Anne Murray

“Lord, have you forgotten me? I have been praying faithfully”

19.What is your biggest fear?
He Is The Lord- D. Hass

“ He is the Lord, He is the Lord!”

20.What is your biggest secret?
Come And See- World Of Worship

21.What do you think of your friends?
Lord Of Glory- T Manion

22.What will you post this as?
Memorial Acclamation D- Celtic Mass- Christopher Walker
( God Help Me!)

23.What song would you play during your first time having sex?
Lord I Lift Your Name On High- World Of Worship

( I should change that to the first time I say mass!!)

Pre Confirmation Camp

2008-06-12T21:56:00.004+08:00

Okay, so basically i just got back from my server's camp. However, i shall only post about the Pre Confirmation Camp as it was so much more enjoyable and worthwhile then the server's camp. By the way, there is no offense meant to the facilitators of my server's camp and no great consolation for those who facilitated my pre con camp.

So basically, pre con camp started on the 6th of June at 7pm. I was there about 5 mins early and sat down talking to Raphael(who went for spec course) and Dennis( My cat class teacher). At about close to 8pm, I was brought to the adoration room with a facilitator to pray and open the camp up for me. Then we went to the attic to read a passage which i had to use Lectio Divina on. After that, was the camp official opening. We said prayers and sang a few songs. We also played a lot of ice breakers and broke into our groups. I had to do a forfeit due to the fact that i was hit by a ball and this must have been the most embarrassing moment for me during the entire camp. I had to kneel romantically in front of the girls and sing twinkle twinkle little star. After that, I made sure that i didn't get any more forfeits. Unfortunately for Gabriel, he had to do a forfeit and it was to clean the toilets at the end of the camp, which he did. After all the games, the laughs and fun, we were all so tired so we went to sleep. By the way, just to inform the general audience, if any, is that i find it easier to do a forfeit in front of my peers , meaning same age or older, then to younger kids:) Okay, so back to the task at hand. There were only 5 male participants at that time and so we all slept at a corner and we talked for about 30min before we all fell into a deep sleep. That was a very nice sleep.

Woke up after about 8 hours of sleep. Went for morning PT in sandals!! Had to run in them too. It was a short one and after that we went for breakfast. After that we had sessions. If i am not wrong, we had sessions all the way till lunch time. Our sessions were rather long and draggy but for some reason i absorbed a lot. After lunch, we had WWJD! Which actually stands for What Would Jesus Do. In this, we had to go around the entire church and go around to "villages" to perform tasks to get enough money to start a church and find the amour of God. We had to put ourself in Jesus' shoes and think what he would have done. So, we went around the entire church and i was rather irritated at a point because many people kept pointing us at the different directions. So after the game was dinner. After dinner was our reconciliation sessions. Firstly, we meditated and did the examination of conscience. After that, we meditated some more before going into the next room and performed a few actions which required us to read a sin and take a marble if i did that sin. We then put it together in a common area and started to pray and meditate again. After that came confession. After confession, i started my adoration. After all that, we had a short group reflection, and a walk around the church before heading back up to the attic.

Once again, had 8 hours of sleep. Went for the 8.30am mass. After had breakfast. Then had sessions until lunch. After lunch had a session then went to play floorball in the badminton court. It was fun. Found out that Raphael, Gabriel & Danielle are super good floor ballers. My group won the other but lost to the all Facil group. After that, i showered and went for another session. This session involved the appreciation of our parents and we had to write a letter to them. After writing my essay, i went to sleep and was rudely awaken by my friend when everyone finished. After this, we were given candles and we were brought downstairs. There, I was shocked to see my parents waiting for me at a table. We had dinner together and after we had all eaten, our camp facilitators told us that we had to sing a song for the parents and give them the letter we wrote to them. We were totally shocked and some of us violently objected. In the end, we sang the song and gave our parents the letter. To my surprise, our parents also had a letter for us. I read it and reflected on it. Very touching. After all that fun, all the camp participants were ushered to the girl's domitory, which is next door to the guy's and we had to wait there for an hour. Next door, we knew that preparations were taking place for our pray over. The air in the room was not tense though as we played Bingo, and went through the new and old testament maps. We also had an IQ lesson. When our facils brought us back to the next room, everything was ready. I will not say anything here as even if i type or say it out, it would be totally impossible to explain and for others to fully comprehend the situation at hand. One thing was for sure though, it was one of the scariest and most emotional time of my life. I actually teared during that session. After that, we had a short reflection and we went out as our groups to have a private reflection. We were then brought up to the badminton court to have a short reflection again. After that, we went down once again and started to talk and eat. Fostering fellowship among the participants. After that, we all had about 2 hours before lights out. So i started writing affirmations and putting them into my friend's respective letter boxes. After that, we played a few games and most of the male participants were asleep even before lights out.

Woke after 8 hours again. Had a very weird morning prayer. We had to stick paper on our back and had to go round the room writing affirmations for others on that piece. Being the tallest, people had to stand on chairs, tip toe or i had to bend down to allow them to write. After that was done, we went for breakfast. After that we cleaned up the area before having a final debrief and subsequently leaving the camp.

I pretty much enjoyed the camp overall. To tell you the truth, i came into the camp expecting nothing at all but came out filled with the knowledge and the Spirit. I really enjoyed the camp and i think that now, my class is getting better bonded together. Better than before. I shall out the pictures as soon as i get them from Dennis. These are some beautiful songs which shows the glory of God.

How Great is Our God- Chris Tomlin

Who Am I- Casting Crowns

Majesty- Delirious

Here I Am To Worship

Heart of Worship

Dumb Quiz

2008-06-09T18:50:00.004+08:00

Starting time: 6.20pm

Name: Ivor

Sisters: 1

Brothers: 2

Shoe size: 13??

Height: 180+

Where do you live: Singapore

Favourite drinks: Coffee, don’t leave home without it

Favourite breakfast: Continental! Bread and butter with bacon and sausages.

Have you ever been on a plane?: Duh!

Swam in the ocean: Yup

Fallen asleep at school: Is Sunday school counted? If yes, then yes. If no, then no.

Broken someone's heart: Parents?

Fell off your chair: Yup

Sat by the phone all night waiting for someone to call: No

Saved e-mails: yup

What is your room like: Nice

What's right beside you: My Hand phone

What is the last thing you ate: Luncheon meat

Ever had chicken pox: yup

Sore throat: yup

Stitches: Yup, appendicitis

Broken nose: nooo

Do you believe in love at first sight: No

Like picnics: Depends on company and what food is avaliable

Who was were the last person people you danced with: Jessica, but that was forced!!

Last made you smile: My mum

You last yelled at: Young irritating servers

Today did you

Talk to someone you like: yup

Kissed anyone: no

Get sick: nope, but close to it

Talk to an ex: no

Miss someone: No

Eat: Yes

Best feeling in the world: When you are sleeping

Do you sleep with stuffed animals: No

What's under your bed: Another pull out bed

Who do you really hate: No one in particular

What time is it now?: 6.28pm

Random:

Is there a person who is on your mind now: Somewhat.

Do you have any siblings: Refer to top

Do you want children: No, I hate kids. Unless someone can change my mindset.

Do you smile often: Depends. But I don’t get angry easily.

Do you like your hand-writing: Yup, but others don’t.

Are your toe nails painted: No

Whose bed other than yours would you rather sleep in:

Some warm 5 star hotel bed.

What color shirt are you wearing now: White

What were you doing at 7:00 p.m. yesterday: Can’t remember. Either having dinner with my parents or sleeping while waiting for others.

I can't wait till: 20, after NS

When did you cry last: yesterday

Are you a friendly person: depends

Do you have any pets: No

Where is the person you have feelings for right now?:

Downstairs?

Did the last person you held hands with mean anything to you now?:

No.

Do you sleep with the TV on?: Nope. I save the environment.

What are you doing right now?:

Doing this dumb quiz.

Have you ever crawled through a window?: I think so.

Can you handle the truth?: Nope.

Are you too forgiving?: Don’t know.

Are you closer to your mother or father?: Mum

Who was the last person you cried in front of?: God?

How many people can you say you've really loved?: Immediate family.

Do you eat healthy?: Definitely not.

Do you still have pictures of you & your ex?: Don’t have ex.

Have you ever cried because of something someone said to you?:

Yes.

If you're having a bad day, who are you most likely to go to?: Bed, or God?

Are you loud or quiet most of the time?:Depends

Are you confident?: Somewhat.

5 things I was doing 10 years ago:

1.Eating

2.Sleeping

3.Playing with my toys.

4.Watching TV

5.Swimming

5 things on my to-do list today:

1.Sleep

2.Pack my bags for camp tomorrow.

3.Start reading.

5 snacks I enjoy:

1.Pringles

2.Nougout

3.Beef sandwich

4.Ice Cream

5.Sushi?

5 things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1.Travel the entire world.

2.Buy a Volvo xc 70/90

3.Buy an Audi

4 Buy a Ferrari!

5. Buy a damn nice house.

5 of my bad habits:

1. Stoning

2. Procrastination

3. Laziness.

5 places I have lived in:

1 Mount Faber.

5 jobs I've had:

1. Student

5 people I tag:

No ONE!!

Camp

2008-06-06T17:52:00.002+08:00

Okay, before i go off for my pre-confirmation camp in about 1 and a half hours, i shall blog about the week.

Monday- Went to watch Iron Man with my brother. Top class show i should say. Very well done and worth the watch.

Tuesday- As King Louis XVI of France would have said, Nothing. (If you don't know what this means, go read your French Revolution History, or get a teacher like Dr Underwood)

Wednesday- Was suppose to go watch Narnia with a group of friends but due to my Mum and me being very obedient, i didn't and when the reports came in about that outing, i really thought that I should have gone!!

Thursday- Watched Narnia with Fr Damien. Was a good show but really very unrealistic. Brought out themes from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and from the 10 Commandments. Other than that i was fun, but too long. Gave me butt cramps.

Friday- Went for Hospital Visit. After that went to eat a steamboat buffet at Vivo City. Good food. Free flow ice cream so i gorged myself. After that, came home and rested. Confined myself to my bed with the laptop on my lap.(Isn't that how laptops got their name?) Had dinner about 15 min ago and now, i am back on my bed. I am nearly ready to go for camp, shaved already, just need to shower. I am still confined to my bed. By the way, this is a self imposed confinement. It is 6.03 on my handphone clock, camp starts in 87min! Hope i enjoy it. Will be back on Monday and off on Tuesday again for my server's camp. Have a good day.

More Emails

2008-06-05T21:48:00.005+08:00

Another one of the emails i thought was very nice. Found it buried somewhere deep in my inbox. Thought that i should share it.

--Very thought provoking. Hope you read it to its end!!!!!

A TEENAGER'S VIEW OF HEAVEN

17-year-old Brian Moore had only a short time to write something for a class. The subject was what Heaven was like. 'I wowed 'em,' he later told his father, Bruce. 'It's a killer. It's the bomb. It's the best thing I ever wrote..' It also was the last.

Brian Moore died May 27, 1997, the day after Memorial Day. He was driving home from a friend's house when his car went off Bulen-Pierce Road in PickawayCounty and struck a utility pole. He emerged from the wreck unharmed but stepped on a downed power line and was electrocuted.

The Moores framed a copy of Brian's essay and hung it among the family portraits in the living room. 'I think God used him to make a point. I think we were meant to find it and make something out of it,' Mrs. Moore said of the essay. She and her husband want to share their son's vision of life after death. 'I'm happy for Brian. I know he's in heaven. I know I'll see him.'

Brian's Essay: The Room...

In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I found myself in the room. There were no distinguishing features except for the one wall covered with small index card files. They were like the ones in libraries that list titles by author or subject in alphabetical order. But these files, which stretched from floor to ceiling and seemingly endless in either direction, had very different headings. As I drew near the wall of files, the first to catch my attention was one that read 'Girls I have liked.' I opened it and began flipping through the cards. I quickly shut it, shocked to realize that I recognized the names written on each one. And then without being told, I knew exactly where I was.

This lifeless room with its small files was a crude catalog system for my life. Here were written the actions of my every moment, big and small, in a detail my memory couldn't match. A sense of wonder and curiosity, coupled with horror, stirred within me as I began randomly opening files and exploring their content. Some brought joy and sweet memories; others a sense of shame and regret so intense that I would look over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching.

A file named 'Friends' was next to one marked 'Friends I have betrayed.' The titles ranged from the mundane to the outright weird 'Books I Have Read,' 'Lies I Have Told,' 'Comfort I have Given,' 'Jokes I Have Laughed at .' Some were almost hilarious in their exactness: 'Things I've yelled at my brothers.' Others I couldn't laugh at: 'Things I Have Done in My Anger', 'Things I Have Muttered Under My Breath at My Parents.' I never ceased to be surprised by the contents.

Often there were many more cards than I expected. Sometimes fewer than I hoped. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the life I had lived. Could it be possible that I had the time in my years to fill each of these thousands or even millions of cards? But each card confirmed this truth. Each was written in my own handwriting. Each signed with my signature.

When I pulled out the file marked 'TV Shows I have watched', I realized the files grew to contain their contents. The cards were packed tightly, and yet after two or three yards, I hadn't found the end of the file. I shut it, shamed, not so much by the quality of shows but more by the vast time I knew that file represented.

When I came to a file marked 'Lustful Thoughts,' I felt a chill run through my body. I pulled the file out only an inch, not willing to test its size and drew out a card. I shuddered at its detailed content.

I felt sick to think that such a moment had been recorded. An almost animal rage broke on me. One thought dominated my mind: No one must ever see these cards! No one must ever see this room! I have to destroy them!' In insane frenzy I yanked the file out. Its size didn't matter now. I had to empty it and burn the cards. But as I took it at one end and began pounding it on the floor, I could not dislodge a single card. I became desperate and pulled out a card, only to find it as strong as steel when I tried to tear it.

Defeated and utterly helpless, I returned the file to its slot. Leaning my forehead against the wall, I let out a long, self-pitying sigh.

And then I saw it.. The title bore 'People I Have Shared the Gospel With.' The handle was brighter than those around it,seemed newer, almost unused. I pulled on its handle and a small box not more than three inches long fell into my hands. I could count the cards it contained on one hand.

And then the tears came. I began to weep. Sobs so deep that they hurt. They started in my stomach and shook through me. I fell on my knees and cried. I cried out of shame, from the overwhelming shame of it all. The rows of file shelves swirled in my tear-filled eyes. No one must ever, ever know of this room. I must lock it up and hide the key. But then as I pushed away the tears, I saw Him.

No, please not Him. Not here. Oh, anyone but Jesus. I watched helplessly as He began to open the files and read the cards. I couldn't bear to watch His response. And in the moments I could bring myself to look at His face, I saw a sorrow deeper than my own.

He seemed to intuitively go to the worst boxes. Why did He have to read every one? Finally He turned and looked at me from across the room. He looked at me with pity in His eyes. But this was a pity that didn't anger me. I dropped my head, covered my face with my hands and began to cry again. He walked over and put His arm around me. He could have said so many things. But He didn't say a word. He just cried with me.

Then He got up and walked back to the wall of files. Starting at one end of the room, He took out a file and, one by one, began to sign His name over mine on each card. 'No!' I shouted rushing to Him. All I could find to say was 'No, no,' as I pulled the card from Him. His name shouldn't be on these cards. But there it was, written in red so rich, so dark, so alive. The name of Jesus covered mine. It was written with His blood. He gently took the card back. He smiled a sad smile and began to sign the cards. I don't think I'll ever understand how He did it so quickly, but the next instant it seemed I heard Him close the last file and walk back to my side.

He placed His hand on my shoulder and said, 'It is finished.' I stood up, and He led me out of the room. There was no lock on its door. There were still cards to be written.

'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.'-Phil. 4:13 'For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.' If you feel the same way forward it so the love of Jesus will touch their lives also My 'People I shared the gospel with' file just got bigger, how about your

Ok, now for some bullshit if i may say.

Beauty of Maths!

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111

9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

Brilliant, isn't it?

And look at this symmetry:

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 1 1111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 =
1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

Now, take a look at this...

101%

From a strictly mathematical viewpoint:

What Equals 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?

We have all been in situations where someone wants you to GIVE OVER 100%.

How about ACHIEVING 101%?

What equals 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help answer these questions:

If:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

If:

H-A-R-D-W-O-R- K

8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

And:

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E

11+14+15+23+12 +5+4+7+5 =96%

But:

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E

1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

THEN, look how far the love of God will take you:

L-O-V-E-O-F-G-O-D

12+15+22+5+15+6+7+15+4 = 101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:

While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close,
and Attitude will get you there,
It's the Love of God that will put you over the top!

Have a nice day & God bless!!

Inspirational Emails

2008-06-04T22:08:00.002+08:00

I received an email and looked through my saved emails and came up with 2 very touching emails. Some may have read it, some may not have but here they are. I find them very relevant in life and should be taken heed to. (Maybe a little long though)

Five (5) lessons to make youthink about the way we treat people.....a little long but certainly worth the read :)

1 - First Important Lesson - Cleaning Lady.

During my second month of college, our professor
gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student
and had breezed through the questions until I read
the last one:

'What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?'

Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the
cleaning woman several times. She was tall,
dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name?

I handed in my paper, leaving the last question
blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if
the last question would count toward our quiz grade.

'Absolutely,' said the professor. 'In your careers,
you will meet many people. All are significant. They
deserve your attention and care, even if all you do
is smile and say 'hello.'

I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her
name was Dorothy.

2. - Second Important Lesson - Pickup in the Rain

One night, at 11:30 p.m., an elderly African-American
woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway
trying to endure a lashing rainstorm. Her car had
broken down and she desperately needed a ride.
Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car.
A young white man stopped to help her, generally
unheard of in those conflict-filled 60s.. The man
took her to safety, helped her get assistance and
put her into a taxicab.

She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his
address and thanked him. Seven days went by and a
knock came on the man's door. To his surprise, a
giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A
special note was attached..

It read:
'Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway
the other night. The rain drenched not only my
clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along.
Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying
husband's bedside just before he passed away... God
bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving
others.'

Sincerely, Mrs. Nat King Cole.

3 - Third Important Lesson - Always remember those who serve.

In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less,
a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and
sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.

'How much is an ice cream sundae?' he asked.

'Fifty cents,' replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled is hand out of his pocket and
studied the coins in it.

'Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?' he inquired.

By now more people were waiting for a table and the
waitress was growing impatient.

'Thirty-five cents,' she brusquely replied.

The little boy again counted his coins.

'I'll have the plain ice cream,' he said.

The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on
the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice
cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress
came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the
table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish,
were two nickels and five pennies..

You see, he couldn't have the sundae, because he had
to have enough left to leave her a tip.

?

?

4 - Fourth Important Lesson. - The obstacle in Our Path.

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a
roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if
anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the
king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by
and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the
King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did
anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of
vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the
peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the
stone to the s ide of the road. After much pushing
and straining, he finally succeeded. After the
peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed
a purse lying in the road where the boulder had
been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note
from the King indicating that the gold was for the
person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The
peasant learned what many of us never understand!

Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

5 - Fifth Important Lesson - Giving When it Counts...

Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a
hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who
was suffering from a rare & serious disease. Her only
chance of recovery appeared to be a blood
transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had
miraculously survived the same disease and had
developed the antibodies needed to combat the
illness. The doctor explained the situation to her
little brother, and asked the little boy if he would
be willing to give his blood to his sister.

I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a
deep breath and saying, 'Yes I'll do it if it will
save her.' As the transfusion progressed, he lay in
bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did,
seeing the color returning to her cheek. Then his
face grew pale and his smile faded.

He looked up at the doctor and asked with a
trembling voice, 'Will I start to die right away'.

Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the
doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his
sister all of his blood in order to save her.

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.

I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.

She said, 'Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?'

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, 'Of course you may!' and she gave me a giant squeeze.

'Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?' I asked.

She jokingly replied, 'I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids...'

'No seriously,' I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

'I always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!' she told me.

After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.

We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this 'time machine' as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up..

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I'll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor.

Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, 'I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.'

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, 'We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.

There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You've got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.

We have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it!

There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.

If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.

Anybody can grow older. That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets.'

She concluded her speech by courageously singing 'The Rose.'

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year's end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago.

One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.

Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late to be all you can possibly be.

When you finish reading this, please send this peaceful word of advice to your friends and family, they'll really enjoy it!

These words have been passed along in loving memory of ROSE.

REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL. We make a Living by what we get, We make a Life by what we give.

God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

Special Post

2008-06-02T22:21:00.002+08:00

Okay, this post marks the 100th post i have posted. Yes, i know it has taken 3 years to get this far but still, the fact that it is still running warms my heart:)

So, last week was the last week of school. And being lazy, i shall blog about the highlights of each day.

Monday- Drama night! Operation R&J took flight on this day. After all the trials and tribulations of rehersals and incessant nagging, no names to be mentioned, the play was finally over. Good in a sense as i could rest now, but still, have to give a thought to the directors who worked painstakingly to make this play a success, and sorry, if i caused any trouble or seemed immature.

Tuesday- Nothing really happened on this day, except that RDA was cancelled and for that, i was overjoyed as more than three quarter the people did not turn up.

(Skipping Wednesday)

Thursday- Ushered for the rock band performance. Met many old SPS guys like Brian, Desmond & Benny. Good to see them again. The rock show was good, although after the Tou Fou Fighters, the songs were mostly crappy. A pity that the school's sound system sucked and no professional recorders were present.

Friday- Last day of school. School went by extremely fast, and rather slack. After school, played basketball for a while before being picked up and brought to United Square for dinner. After that headed home and rested.

Saturday- First official day of the school holiday. Normal Saturday routine, threatened to quit the servers again.

Sunday- Was suppose to wake up at 6am for a run but due to unforeseen circumstances the night before, could not wake up on time and had to postpone my run to 7am. Felt very refreshed after the run. Practically slacked the whole day.

Monday(today)- Woke up for a run at 6am. Super refreshing, ate peanut porridge. After that, rested before leaving for Vivo City to catch Iron Man. Ate Carl's Junior. Excellent portebello burger. The opportunity cost was the double western bacon cheese burger, which is still awesome. Iron Man was excellent. Good mix of comedy and action. Good show. Found out that i could actually get from my house to Vivo in 7min! After that, came home, rested, was suppose to go to the gym but decided against it with an external influence. So, basically slacked the whole day, loaded sim tower, played it until recently, got to fifth star(5 star hotel) after a long and tedious period of time(5 hours) then the game closed!! Was so irritated. Am still very irritated. Going to start studying for real tomorrow. No more slacking for me, the boredom is killing me. And i despise idling(usually) although i am an expert in the art. So that is how the week started for me.

Stressful Week

2008-05-18T23:07:00.002+08:00

Finally, one of the more stressful weeks in the term has passed. The reasons why i consider this week so stressful is due to the 3 test bombarding at the same time. History test was on Monday. I think I did rather alright in that although I had to rush through the last question and did not write as much as I should have. The next test was on Tuesday, Biology. I thought it was moderate. Wasn't the easiest paper but also wasn't the hardest. Chemistry test was on Thursday, and I thought that this was extremely difficult. If I am not wrong, Mr Bowen tested things that he didn't even teach. So unfair. After school, had to stay back until 6, and miss basketball at the same time to attend a play meeting which I thought was rather useless, for me at least. Got back my History test results on Friday and did alright although not as well as I hoped. Got back Biology and this time, I was rather disappointed. Didn't do as well as expected and made many careless mistakes. After school, had play rehearsals again. This time a lot more fruitful. So that kind of rounds up the most stressing week in a while.

Touching Movies

2008-05-01T21:25:00.003+08:00

Ok, I watched 2 very touching movie. One this afternoon and the other just now. The first one was Click. It was suppose to be a hilarious movie but after the movie, if one reflected on it, you would see that is has a very deep and important moral. The moral is that family priorities should never and can never be left in the ditch in place for work. No matter how important it is. In the story, Adam Sandler dreams of what his life is like when he got the remote and he uses it to his advantage. He used it to get out of arguments with his wife and stuff. He even used it until the point where it would go automatically and he used it until he got his promotion. This is where the trouble starts. His son tells him that his dad is dead and Adam goes back to see how it happened. He noticed that his dad actually wanted to go out with him but because of his work, and his promotion, Adam neglected his father. He was extremely depressed after this and swore not to let his son let work overtake family. By the way, due to his work, he had lost his wife. So, before he could tell his son about this, he had a heartattack. That day just so happened to be his son's wedding day. His son was due to fly off for a Honeymoon but cancelled the trip just to go to work. When his dad heard this on the hospital bed, he tried to tell him but to no avail. When he finally thought about what he had to do, he got out of bed, tore off his life support equipment and ran after his son into the rain and collapsed. His son, thankfully, heard him and went to help him. In the movie, Adam's final words were :" Don't let work overtake family.". We can relate this life in a sense. Do we let the prospect of work overtake that of the family? Do we choose work over family? Do we succumb to these sort of worldly pressures and let go of the precious love of a family? Well, it is best not to. A promotion may always be there. However, family is something that must be nurtured and taken care of. A family is a group of people who will always be there when ever and wherever the need arises. They will never leave if nurtured properly and will be like a best friend in times of need. Therefore, do not let your work or even peer pressure become more important than your family.

The second show I watched was October Sky. It was about a group of boys going against all odds to make a difference in their lives. Even though they were somewhat ostracized in their town, they strived with determination and came out as heros. I won't really elaborate on this show. Getting straight to the point, do we just give up all our dreams and aspirations just because people say we can't do it and that we are just wasting our time? Just reflect on this question. Does peer pressure rule our life? We should be able to dictate our own lives. Who is to say that you are wasting your time? Who is to say that it is useless? If you really strive and are determined, you will make it someday. Thomas Edision had more than 100 prototypes for the lightbulb and was told that it was useless at times. However, he strived and was determined and thus, he made invented the lightbulb. So, we should not let what people say affect what we want to be. We should just do what we want to do. After all, failure helps you learn much more than success.

We Will Rock You

2008-04-26T13:22:00.003+08:00

Ok, I haven't blogged in ages and the time for blogging is at hand. Me, and a few others went for WE WILL ROCK YOU on Wednesday. We met at the Marina Square and ate at Yoshinoya, which really sucked. Paul Wong started doing his Math but we had to leave quickly so he didn't do much of it. We were nearly late for the Musical. I had very good seats at a decent price and I thought than it was very good. It was one of the best I have seen in a long long time. Also, during the last song, Paul's screams and shouts could be heard distinctly through the Esplanade. After the musical, I went home and hit the sheets as soon as possible. By the way, if you have not watched it, go and get tickets for tomorrow's show or something like that! The last day is TOMORROW!!

A Simple Reflection

2008-04-16T18:22:00.003+08:00

Below is a simple reflection that i thought of while I was looking through a blog and i adapted this from the blog together with some of my personal thoughts.

A son asked his father, 'Dad, will you take part in a marathon with me?'

The father who, despite having a heart condition, says 'Yes'. They went on to complete the marathon together.

Father and son went on to join other marathons, the father always saying 'Yes' to his son's request of going through the race together.

One day, the son asked his father, 'Dad, let's join the Ironman together.' To which, his father said 'Yes' to.

For those who didn't know, Ironman is the toughest triathlon ever. The race encompasses three endurance events of a 2.4 mile (3.86 kilometer) ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile (180.2 kilometer) bike ride, and ending with a 26.2 mile (42.195 kilometer) marathon along the coast of the Big Island.

Father and son went on to complete the race together.

I was extremely touched when i watched this video. It taught me that in life, even if you may seem disabled, and unable to do certain stuff, there always will be someone there to help. Also, it brought my mind back to this phrase in Isaiah 49, it is stated that God has our names written on the palm of His hands. For this very reason, we should rely more on him. He will guide us through the wilderness just as the father did in the video.

Debate Semi Finals

2008-04-12T10:00:00.003+08:00

Yesterday, the SJI International Debating team attended a debate competition and debated against St Margaret's Secondary School in the semi-finals of the Julia Gabriel's Debating Championship. This round was a 1 hour preparation round with no help from coaches. I, being the reserve of the team, helped the main speakers find examples and look up on facts. This was hopeless however as the almanac barely had anything. After the 1 hour, we debated St Margaret's and we WON!! We were all so happy that we won and now, we are finalist. Imagine a new school, getting into the finals of a debate competition at a national level. So, after getting the results, I was suppose to meet my parents but, Louisa, Antonia and Nicole dragged me to the bus stop with them against my will. When they finally gave up, and left, I had to walk around the school, trying to figure out where the main entrance was. I found it after a while. Me and my parents went to Zion Road to eat. There I was surprised to meet my God-Parents. And if that was not bad enough, I met my church sacristan. What a small country Singapore is. So, after dinner, I headed home and did my homework from 10 till 12 and was advised to go to sleep by Louisa as I had a headache. After that, I read my book before sleeping at 1am. So, now that SJI International is in the Finals of the debate, more supporters are expected and hopefully, we can win this.

LET YOUR WILL BE DONE!!

Holy Week

2008-03-23T21:36:00.010+08:00

It is Sunday and therefore, the Holy Week is finally over. Will recap on what I did throughout the week.

17th March:

Had to go to the airport with my brother to pick up my other brother's friend. Had to stand at the arrival hall holding up a plastic sheet with his name on it waiting for him. It was super boring and thank God that his flight was to only one at Terminal 3 and immigrations were fast. After that, went to Marina Square to meet the former council and the Hanoi people to watch a movie. We went to the arcade, then to the bowling alley and finally to the movies. We watched Step up 2 the streets. It was alright. A little boring at times but otherwise a good show with a good story line.

18th March:

Went to school early in the morning at 10am. Had debate practice. We did our first motion while having lunch and the second motion totally undisturbed. Me and Ian were against Daniel, Gerard and Rebecca. After debate, I went to watch the soccer training as I had to wait for QQ to finish before heading to Louisa's house for her birthday party. When we finally reached, we met a few others there. We had dinner there and watched Boogeyman. It isn't exactly a scary movie but it is gory and stuff. After that, we cut the ice cream cake and I cabbed home.

19th March:

My first off day this week and Louisa's and Anne Marie's birthday. I was suppose to finish all my homework on this day but ended up playing an extremely old game. Heroes 2 of Might and Magic with my brother. Spent the whole day playing that without getting any work done.

20th March:

Went down to church at 8.50am. I served a funeral service before heading down to St Stephen's Church with Fr Romeo for the Chrism Mass. I had to stand throughout the Mass as it was a small church and the attendance was huge. Surprisingly, the homily given by His Grace, the Archbishop, was short and interesting. After the Mass, I went to eat with 3 priest and 2 seminarian brothers whom I know. Due to the fact that I was the only lay person in the hall, Fr Romeo called me the Deacon of St Teresa's Church. After lunch, Fr Damien sent me home. I rested for about 2 hours before heading for church again. I served the 5pm Maundy Thursday Mass in my church followed by the 7pm one. After both Masses, the servers were provided with Mc Donald's to eat. Some of the core group brought our food to the kitchen to eat, where we feasted on ice cream and what not. At about 10.30pm, me and another server had a competition to see who could drink the most number of cups of orange juice. We drank 13 and by then, we were so bloated to the extent of vomiting. And to make things worse, we were up for adoration at 11pm. I went to the toilet many times before and went through adoration easily. After adoration, I walked home and slept.

21st March:

Good Friday. Had my half meal of a single prata before going to church. When I was in church, I served the 10am children's service for ulterior motives. Basically, the children's service is nice to serve cause there is no Stations, no Passion reading and we just sat down for the General Intercessions. So, basically, I slacked through the service. After the service, just as I was about to reach home, the Headserver called me to inform me that I had to come down at 2.30pm to help with the veneration for that service. I did so and helped with the veneration. After that, I went home and rested before my brother's friends came over for a BBQ. I had to prepare the fire and since it was a day of fast and abstinence, I had to eat rice and peanut sauce for dinner.

Our sinful actions nailed his hands.

Our sinful paths nailed his leg.

Our sinful thoughts crowned his head.

Our sinful will pierced his heart.

We turn our back on God,

And He offered His back to be scourged.

With a loud cry he offered his life for us.

His death on the cross....

(Adapted from http://kampungpunggol.blogspot.com/)

22nd March:

Went to church at 10am. Had to clean up the church. Wash torches, prepare cassocks, mop sanctuary etc. Took about half a day and then had practice for the mass. Once everything was done, we found out that the church was broken into with a door chopped. As a result, some of the older servers, me included, armed ourselves with brooms and started making a sweep of the Parish House. We found nothing unfortunately. Went home after that and returned to church at 7.45pm for the Mass at 7pm. The Mass went well this year unlike last year.

So that kind of rounds up my Holy Week.

Total Masses: 5

Total Services: 2.5

REJOICE! REJOICE! SING CHOIRS OF ANGELS. FOR THE LORD INDEED HAS RISEN!!

Hanoi

2008-03-15T21:54:00.002+08:00

Left for Hanoi on the 7th of March immediately after Dr Hjorth's lesson. We took a charted bus to the airport from school. On the bus, Bro Mike called Louisa's phone. He spoke to me and told me to make sure that the Catholic's of the group went for Mass on Sunday. Told what Bro Mike said to Mr Bennett and everything was to be arranged in Hanoi. Got to the airport after a rather short bus ride and checked-in. Apparently, and unfortunately, I happened to get a seat rather far away from the rest of the group and slightly closer to Mr and Mrs Bennett. Lousy check-in person. I was rather annoyed that this happened. Anyway, being open-minded, i sort of appreciated the quiet time I would get alone and in partial solitude. So, got on-board the plane and was sitting in between 2 strangers. Found out how kind the person next to me was when I noticed I didnt have a pen with me to fill up the immigration form and she lent one to me. Other than that, the plane trip consisted with me reading my book, sleeping and in deep contemplation( AKA partial sleeping). Once in Hanoi, regrouped with the rest and boarded a bus which brought us the the airport terminal. At the immigration counter, i was rather afraid of the immigration officer cause he never smiled and never spoke a word. He was like this stern looking teacher sort of guy. Rather high security at the airport and I was so scared that they may turn hostile for unknown reasons. Anyway, once immigrations was cleared, we boarded another bus which brought us to eat dinner at PHO 24. Which has excellent beef noodles. After that wonderful dinner, we headed for our hotel, which turned out to be some kind of motel. Anyway, it was super scary and everyone couldnt sleep. The only good thing was that there was aircon and hot water. My room mates were QQ and Reuben. Reuben for once was acting sane. Surprisingly, i feel asleep quickly.

Woke up early the next morning and took a shower before heading down for breakfast. After breakfast, we did a tour of Hanoi from Ho Chin Min's grave like thingy i cant spell to the government house like thingy. Will add pictures of them in a later post when i have consollidated all my photos and others. After the tour, we went to a war museum where we saw some rather interesting exhibits and watched a boring show. After that, we went for lunch at some very weird place and after that, we went shopping. We also watched a water puppet show which was in Vietnamese and therefore, very boring. After that, we had dinner and went to the night market, which is a super scary place. Me and QQ had to bodyguard Louisa and Antonia. After that, went back to the hotel/motel/guest house.

Woke up a little later but still considered early. Was the first down for breakfast and then, headed to the Blue Dragon Foundation to get a small briefing before we went to a Blue Dragon runned hostel like place to meet the people. After that, we went to a lake where we had to use swan-like boats. Me and QQ were in one boat and we were extremely tired after paddling. After going to the lake, we headed to church. We attended mass at St Joseph's Cathedral. Mass was in Vietnamese so i could not understand a single thing but at least i had my 366 days with the Lord to refer to during the Gospel. After the Mass, we went around the cathedral taking pictures and talking to a seminarian who told us more about the church. After that, we went for dinner before retiring to our hotel.

Woke up at the same time. Wasnt first down. Went to the Blue Dragon Foundation first thing in the morning. Me, QQ, Alister, Reuben, Minh, Ko Ann and Mr Bennett went to do the first shift of painting at a house for the first shift. We were making good progress. we managed to paint a wall in about 15min and to think that we still have so much time to rest and relax in between. We would sometimes walk out, have a biscuit and drink some water before returning to work and we finished everything in good time and in good quality. After that, we walked back to the Foundation for lunch then it was our turn to entertain the children at the Foundation. We thought them how to play recorders and other games. It was really noisy. After that, we headed back to the hotel where we had to interview future Vietnamese scholars in the school. We interviewed a total of 3 students per group with 2 groups. After the interviews, we went downstairs for dinner before heading up to our rooms.

Woke up same time. 7am Hanoi time. 8am Singapore time. Breakfast was the same old thing. Bread and butter. Went to the Foundation again. Did painting again. Extremely inefficent this time. The space was too narrow to paint. Went back to Blue Dragon. Played chinese chess with a few children and got owned most of the time. Got out-witted by Jackie in connect four. Cooked pasta for the kids. Went to the Temple of Literature AKA Tempearature. There was a saying that if you touch the turtles' heads in the temple, you would be lucky in exams. Upon hearing this, QQ and JJ, who will be having IGCSE this year, ran around touching all the turtles' heads until they heard that there were 300 in total in the temple. After going to the temple, we ate good ice cream with the blue dragon kids before heading for dinner and subsequently, rest in the hotel.

Woke, up, had breakfast and went off to a village near the outskirts of Hanoi. We visited many sculpting shops and a temple. Weirdest lunch i ever had then back to Hanoi for shopping and interviews again, which i was not involved in. After that, we headed for dinner at a Thai restruant. Good food. Headed back to the hotel to sleep for the long flight the next day. Before sleeping, we had a reflection together as a group.

Woke at 4am Hanoi, 5pm Singapore. Packed my bags and went for breakfast. Headed for the airport immediately. Checked-in. Got better seats. This time with friends. Good plane ride and was happy to be back in Singapore but sad to leave Hanoi. I feel that i learnt alot during this trip and i recongise that this was the last meeting for the old council of 2007. So,

LONG LIVE THE OLD COUNCIL OF 2007!!

Prayer for Vocations

2008-03-01T23:16:00.002+08:00

Woke up super early this morning! At 7.30am. May not seem early but if you compare it to the usual time i wake up on Saturday mornings, you would freak. So, in order not to freak people out, cause that isn't the main purpose of having a blog, I won't tell you what time I usually rise on Saturdays. So woke up early, had chicken pie and coffee before going to Maria's house to bake cookies and brownies to be sold on Monday. Got there and found JJ, Jackie and Antonia there. Started by sifting flour then helped Louisa with the baking of brownies after that. Hard work wisking the thingy. I must have developed some arm muscle. Plus i did it twice. After the 2 batches of brownies were done, QQ and I relaxed. Until lunch came. Maria's mum bought pizza for us and made pasta. I ate the pizza but not the pasta as i was totally full. Watched a movie after that and tried the cookies and brownies which were nice. Especially the brownies since i had to wisk it. After making everything, trying everything and towards the end of the show, i walked to Holy Spirit Church with Maria and Nicole so i could take a bus to Church. I was suppose to be there at 3pm but made it only at 3.10pm. I waited in the office in fear of disturbing people as i entered the auditorium. Thank God, Fr Damien walked in and asked me to carry the Monstruance up. I did so and set with him for the Prayer for Vocation. I was suprised to see Ben Tan and Ian Kwan playing the guitar for the praise and worship. After that, some Nun gave a vocation talk, which was touching. After that, was Holy Hour. Benediction and reflection. Nearly fell asleep. After Holy Hour, watched a 15 min video of Fr Stephen Yim. Inspiring and insightful. That signalled the end of the Prayer for Vocation. Went to the sarcristy to get ready for Novena. Went in late for Novena and was nearly killed by Fr Arro. Fr Romeo celebrated Mass and i need help! The choir needs help! Went for dinner after that.

Debate Competition

2008-02-18T22:14:00.003+08:00

Well, we, meaning me, Ian, Gerard, Daniel and Rebecca participated in a Singapore Secondary School Debate competition on Friday. The speakers were me, as first, Ian as second and Gerard as third. Rebecca and Daniel were reserves and I had to do the Reply Speech. Just before the debate, we were really nervous so a short prayer was said. We sat down and just talked for about 5min while waiting for the other debate to end. When the debate ended, we entered and took our seats. I was so nervous when the MC was introducing the debate. I took a sip of water and stood up when my I was called up to speak. I stated all my points and definitions with no problem at all cause the ACS Barker debaters did not POI me at all. I was so happy when the 5min bell went which signalled an end to all POIs. Marc, our debate coach, distracted me with the hand motion to conclude and i stopped for a while, lost my trail of thought. In the end, I managed to finsih it with no problems and 15sec to spare. Next speaker was Ian. He did a good job rebutting and stating his points. He too was not offered a single POI. The same went for Gerard. After all the speakers had spoken, a 2min interval was given for me to prepare my reply speech. I was totally stressed at that point. First of all, I did'nt know what to say, and second of all, I was confused with the points. Mr Anandraj had to go to the extent of calming me down before i managed to deliver my Reply Speech. I think I did'nt do very well in that due to the fact that I said expression of speech instead of expression of choice. Anyway, I was happy that that was over and that we won! To celebrate, we went to Serene Centre for Mc Donald's. My dad sent some of us there. There we met David Menon, Ben Teo and Tim Lim. We ate Mc's then i cabbed home. What a tensed day. First one in and last one out in the debate! And it was my first competiton.

CNY

2008-02-09T22:07:00.000+08:00

Ah... CNY! Lots of Ang Pao. Well, i got a CNY statistics thingy here which is rather inaccurate but for the sake of blogging, here it is:

Number of item consumed from 7th to the 9th of Feb:

Melon Seeds: A hell lot
Cokes: 7
Chicken Wings: 5
Yue Shang: 2
Yue Shang Cracker Packets: 1
Ice Lemon Tea: 2

Well, that is all i can remember. Happy CNY!!

Finally...

2008-02-01T21:54:00.000+08:00

A very long time since i last blogged. Actually was borthered to open Internet Explorer to actually blog. (It sucks anyway...) Anyway, school is becoming more exhausting. Lots of homework and CCAs. I had basketball training yesterday. Since it started at 4.15, me and pat went to the office to clarify the status of our ez-link cards which is starting to piss me off. Anyway, after that, we took a walk to the old school and visited our old class room. M2. That really brought back memories. The wonderful experiences in M2 and the not so wonderful experiences of the Science Lab. Anyway, played some "basketball" with the netball hoop. I was happily moving away the hoop while people tried to shoot and ran away when Leon got the ball. When basketball finally started, we played a warm up excersise called "four corneres". Very confusing game. It would take me until tommorw to explain about it and when you are done reading it, you most probaly would say:" Huh!!??", so there is no point anyway. Well, we had to basiclly pass the ball and not drop it casue then we all had to do 5 push-ups. We dropped the ball like 7 times and did about 35 push-ups. After that, we did some defending and attacking and finally played a match at the end. The catch was that the losing team had to do 20 push-ups. Fortunately for my team, we won. After basketball training, went home and rested. Did some homework and sat in my Uncle's new Passat. Which is a car by the way.

1st Week Of School- 2008

2008-01-11T22:19:00.000+08:00

Finally, the first week of school is over. It is so exhausting. There are certain things in the new school building which i like and some i dislike. For instance, the bell is some monotonous tone and the new lockers are simply crappy. The teachers are ok. Glad to have Mr Toh as tutor again. The only thing i am not happy about is that i didn't get Dr Underwood as my history teacher. I got Ms Curry instead.( Yes, that is her real name.) Her teaching standered isn't really like Dr Underwood's. My physics teacher, Mr Bowen, is super boring. He talks softer than the air con. Dr Hjoth is a nice teacher. We were already doing experiments on the first lesson! Chinese class is alright. Very humorous as Ben Tan and Paul Samuels are in the class. Other than that, i pretty much am okay with the school.

Cruise

2007-12-29T16:41:00.000+08:00

Day 1: 21st Dec
Well, i have been too lazy to continue the Nepal post and since it has been so long ago, i shall continue to the next event that happened during the holidays. On the 21st, my family and I, went on a cruise to Phuket and back. We sailed on the Rhapsody of the Sea from Royal Caribbean International. The ship was huge!! Anyway, was shocked to see my uncles, aunties and grandparents there. My cousins were also on-board. On the first day, we only got on the ship around 7pm cause of all the long immigration and stuff. Super irritating. We first had to go to Suntec to check in and get our keys. Then we were brought by bus to Pasir Pangang port to board the ship as the ship was too tall to enter the bay to dock at Singapore Cruise Centre. When we first got onboard the ship and went to our rooms, me, my sister and brother settled in before going for an early dinner. After the meal, we went around the ship exploring it and everything. Fr Romeo, the priest who got a free room so that he could give Mass on-board the ship told me that there would be morning Mass on Sunday. Went to watch a show. It was rather interesting. There were some Brazilian guys playing around with whips and drums! Went to sleep at about 1am cause we were exploring the ship.

Day 2: 22nd Dec
Woke up around 9am. Had breakfast and then went to rest in the room for a while before going to the gym with my dad. After that me, my brother and sister went rock climbing with my cousins on the rock wall on-board the ship. We then went to Port Kelang to eat some stuff. When we got back, me and my dad went to the solarium, the indoor swimming pool, to relax and went to the jacuzzi. Nice and relaxing. I had ice cream there. Ate a total of 3 ice creams that day. After that, we went to get dressed for dinner. Fr Romeo joined us for dinner. After dinner, my cousins bought us Ben and Jerry's. Watched the show that night. It was a musical about country. Not a very bad show. We then walked around for a while before turning in for the night.

Day 3: 23rd Dec
My alarm rang 3 times only to be snoozed by me. Then, 5 minutes later, the phone rang. My brother had to hit me to wake me up to go pick it up. It was Fr Romeo. I had to serve morning Mass. Just as i was going to go to the toilet, the phone rang again. This time it was the wake up call. Then, just as i was going to the toilet again, the phone rang a third time. It was my mum. Waking me up. I then went to have a shower before taking my cassock and going to the bar where Mass would be held. Waited for about 15 minutes, set up the altar and stuff. Found out there was no Chalice so Fr asked for a wine glass. The turn up at the mass wasn't too bad. I think. Considering the fact that it was a Sunday morning on-board a ship... After Mass, went for breakfast. Had eggs benedict, poached eggs on muffins with hollandaise sauce smothered all over it...Yum!! After that, rested for a while before going off shore to Penang. Was surprised to meet my Uncle there. He apparently flew to Penang the day before. We walked around and stopped at a shopping centre cause my hands were swelling up. Must be the Malaysian air! Lol. Or i am just allergic to something. Had lunch and coffee at some outdoor place before taking a half-an-hour walk back to the ferry terminal to tender back to the ship. I then went to the jacuzzi with my dad and uncle. After that, we went to rest before getting ready for the Captain's cocktail reception. For this occasion, we had to wear formal. So i wore a suit, tie and long sleeve with black pants and shoes. My grandparents were surprised at how mature i looked in a suit. I think i looked good. I nearly got some champagne but the waiter saw through my disguise and i ended up with a fruit punch. Drank some of my dad's though. After that was dinner. Good meal. Went to watch some magic show after that. Sat with Fr Romeo at the balcony. He wasn't really impressed at the act though. It was a good show nonetheless... Slept early as i was tired.

Day 4: 24th Dec
Woke up at 7.45am this morning. Had to do so as we had a snorkeling trip later that morning. We had breakfast before going up to the meeting place. We took a tender out of the ship and to Phuket island. We then boarded a bus to bring us somewhere else. I did not pay attention as i fell asleep on the bus. When we finally got to the other ferry terminal, we took a ferry to Phi Phi island to swim for a while. Did not go into the water there as did not want to get wet before the real snorkeling started. After about 20 minutes on the beach, we left on the boat to see some landforms. Mr Z would like that. After that, we went to some place in the middle of the sea to snorkel. Saw many nice things. From beautiful corals to nasty sea urchins. It was beautiful overall. Wished i brought a waterproof camera. After about 20 minutes, we headed off to another island to for lunch. There, i had egg and a lot of bread. After lunch, we went to another island to snorkel for 1 hour. After that, it was the end of the trip. We went back to our first checkpoint before taking a bus to the main terminal to tender back to the ship. When finally on the ship, i went to rest before dinner. Watched the before dinner show as there would be Mass at 11.45pm that night. The show was another musical about ballroom dancing. Rather boring i must say. After that, headed for dinner. After dinner, went back to my cabin to rest a while before collecting my cassock and meeting Fr at the theatre to prepare for Mass. As the chalice was missing, Fr asked for the container used to serve ice cream as one. And since there was no sacramental wine, Fr was give Merlot, a red wine. Mass went smoothly. The "choir" wasn't really too good but the attendance for the mass wasn't bad. After Mass, was suppose to follow my cousins to have supper but i decided to turn in for the night as i had to serve Mass again the next morning and i was really tired. So i went back to sleep.

Day 5 &6: 25th and 26th Dec
Woke up at 9.45am!! Mass was at 8am! I woke up late. Was so tired still though. Found out from my brother that they played monopoly last night until 3am. Damn, i should have stayed up. Anyway, went for breakfast then rested. Climbed the rock wall again. Conquered it with no difficulty whatsoever. After that, went to the gym for a short workout before returning to the cabin. I was feeling a little lousy after lunch so i stayed in the room as my family went to play bingo. After bingo was dinner. I went for dinner, sat down, ordered my food, ate a piece of bread then found out that i couldn't really finish it. So i went to the room and rested. After a short nap and a 10-minute shower, i felt better. Well enough to watch the Christmas show and play monopoly. I also learnt how to play bridge! We played until 3.30am then went to sleep. Only to wake up 3 hours later for breakfast. After that, we waited for about 2 hours on the pool deck to disembark the ship. It was so sad. Leaving the nice ship, the lap of luxury. So that kind of rounds up my family vacation this holiday. It was fun and i really enjoyed it a lot.

Nepal Pics

2007-12-17T21:38:00.001+08:00

Nepal Trip

2007-12-12T20:17:00.000+08:00

Just got back from Nepal yesterday morning. Will blog about the highlights of the day and add pictures in at the end of the post.

Day 1:

Got up early and went to the airport. Took a plane to Bangkok and subsequently to Nepal. When we arrived at the hotel, i was rather happy to see that it had a TV and it showed channels like HBO and Star Movies. Had a good dinner.

Day 2:

Got up even earlier this time. Caught a plane to Lukla from which we would trek to Phakding. The view from the plane was magnificent. Saw the entire Himalayas from there. It was rather windy when we arrived in Lukla. Had lunch at a lodge before trekking for about 3 hours to Phakding. When we arrived there, we had dinner then went to bed. Shaun got sick on that day.

Day 3:

Woke up many times in the night. When it finally was time to wake up, i had to use cold water to do so. I had a good breakfast before starting the 5-6 hour trek to Namche. We first had to go downhill then uphill. Nmache wasn at the altitude of 3445 metres. So we trekked and trekked until we reached this open ground with a small stream. There, we had tea. Cookies and hot tang. It was excellent. Just as we were having tea, it started snowing. At first we thought it was rain but found out that it was snow in the end. We took a few mintues to take in the wonderful spectacle before continuing to eat our food. After about half an hour, the first group, set of to tackle the uphill part of the trek. We would climb up a total height of 400m. By the way, the first group consists of me, Sgaun, Bryan, Caleb and Clare. We also had a guide, whose name is Sham. A very friendly guy. So we started our uphill hike. It was exhausting that we had to stop after every 7-8 mins of walking. When we finally reached Namche, we were totally exhausted, cold and wet from the snow. By the time we reached Namche, the snow had become into a blizzard. Everything was covered in snow. We were relieved as the heater in the dining room of the lodge was on.

Day 4:

We woke up in the morning and went to a museum from which we could see Everest. There, we also played with snow. We then trekked to Paronoma Hotel up in a mountain to rest for a while and to see Everest even closer. After that, we trekked down to our lodge in Namche again. Nicole got injured on this day also. She fell and injured her leg.

Will pause here for a while. Getting tired. Will continue tmr.

2007-11-29T22:55:00.000+08:00

Ok, will start by adding pictures from 8JTo's class outing but unfortunately, i dont have them. So i will add them when i get them.

Joseph and the Amazing Techni-Coloured DreamCoat was a huge success. After the show on Wednesday, the brothers took a picture and here it is:

The play was extremely fun and i would love to take part in other musicals again! Many thanks to Antonia and Jessica for giving me flowers and for helping me to improve my dance! The picture came from Cheryl's blog anyway so to advertise it, http://passable-foxtrot.blogspot.com/
Good thing Mr Z taught me to reference all my sources...

Amazing Week

2007-11-11T17:50:00.000+08:00

This week has been very fun! Will highlight the most fun parts of the week:

Tuesday: Paul made a name for a group of people with the names Beng, Moose and Mirror. He called the group Mirrorboose!! this happened during English.

Thursday: Paul, Daniel, Robert and Patrick came to my house. We played tennis, "waterpolo", watched a movie, played snooker and squash together. It was so fun! Me and Robert couldn't play snooker for nuts! Patrick was just sitting in the snooker room playing HellGate London which isn't very good.

Saturday: Had the Nepal walk. A few of us took a wrong route which Mr Z told us to take and ended up in front of a rock face before Mr Z realised his mistake. So in the end we had to backtrack. Went to school for rehersals until 1pm then went to Novena for lunch with Daniel and Paul. They came to my house ton do the Geography project and when were done, we played billiards.

Results!!

2007-10-30T21:43:00.000+08:00

Results are out and i am rather happy with them. I thought i did rather well even though i didn't really study. So here are the results:

English: 72%( May be counting mistakes though)- 5
Math: 71% -5
Chinese: 81%-6(Did the PCa paper)
Science: 74%- 6
Geography: 75%-6(I think)
History: 82%- 7

Exams!!

2007-10-26T21:42:00.000+08:00

Sigh... exams are over and yet i still am too lazy to blog... Anyway, the October holidays were rather fun even though i was supposing to be studying. On Tuesday and Wednesday, went to Greggy house to eat stingray and study. On Thursday, went to Brash Basah to study with Dan and Paul. This is the most interesting things i did during the holiday.\

Camp

2007-09-30T21:04:00.000+08:00

The SJII camp ended yesterday. It was an extremely exhausting camp for me and i think for all the councilors. So, school went on as usual on Friday. After lunch, everyone broke into their camp groups and we started the ice breaker games. I was in charge on group 7 and i think they were pretty alright except that they can go out of hand from time to time. After the ice breaker games, me, Greg, JJ and Maria walked to our stations. Me and Greg went to the HDB HUB. Greg went top get something to eat while i went to the toilet. It took the first group about half an hour to get to our station and we screwed up. Firstly, the aim of our station was to find stuff. 1 of those items include a 1.5 litre bottle. We didn't know that they can't buy anything so we just let them. In the end, the group ended up getting a 5min penalty. Other groups came in and did fine. The last group, took nearly 45min to get to our station. They were also the last back to school. According to Cheryl, my group did a cheer about me. I was so amazed. After scavanger hunt, went back to school. At night, we watched the Longest Yard but i missed half of it as i was doing work. After the movie I was about to start patrolling but Ms Carter told me to go to bed so i did. As i was sleeping under the air con, i began to freeze through the night and was finally relived when Scott Lim asked if i could accompany him to the toilet. After that, i changed into my PE clothes and met the councilors. After breakfast, was the interclass matches. I played soccer for my class and was referee for a second match although i got swapped halfway through. 8jto won the soccer match 5-0 and drew with PCA 7-7 in captain's ball. The novelty games were after that. I was in charge of a station and when the 2 people at my group started the race, one went the wrong way. In the end JTO won but i ended up being criticized. All i can say about this is that i told both of them the same thing. Anyway, after the novelty events was the Parent Teacher matches. In the SJII team were: Mr Toh, Mr Rainone, Mr Bennett, Ms Lawrence, Dr Underwood, Uncle Sam and Mr Z. One student played also. In the end, the teachers lost in a penalty shootout. After that was campfire rehearsals before the SJII Idol. Dan really sang very well. At the end of the SJII Idol, Brother and Dr Underwood sang a song. Mr Anandraj was supposed to sing but he did not in the end. After that was dinner before the campfire. Me, QQ and Greg were in-charge of the campfire. We had to go in and put wood onto the fire. It was extremely hot and we were tired after that. Once again, my group read out a poem on me again. I did not tell them to do any of that. After campfire, was dismissal and i went home to sleep. Overall, i think the camp was rather good but very tiring.

Tanglin Mall

2007-09-19T21:34:00.000+08:00

Today was rather eventful. The day started off with me going for morning prayer. Since Brother wasnt there, Ben Teo asked me to lead the prayer. I tried doing it and i though i did quite alright. Just after intersessions, Brother came in. He was proud of me i think. So, school started, did volley ball for PE, nearly forgot about the meeting with Mrs Teo, Math, did more area of cone and pyramid. Music was fun today. We had to play our own version of "Oh When The Saints" and "Amazing Grace". Since i brought my recorder to school, I played the recorder for " Oh When The Saints". I kind of screwed up on my last note! So after music was chinese. It was boring at first until lao shi told us to come up to the board and we played a game. Just before class ended, she wrote this on the board:

功课

没有功课

This means that there will not be homework.
When we heard this, we were screaming with joy until lao shi added:

功课

没有功课，才怪！

This means that we have homework!!
After this, we were pleading with lao shi but it was in vain. We got chinese homework anyway.
So after school, we went to Tanglin Mall in a cab. Me, Dan, Sarah and Nicole Fan were very fortunate to enter a Mercedes cab. When we entered, Dan was shaking his head in tune with the song. When the taxi driver saw this, he asked if we wanted hotter songs. Dan said ok and the cabbie blasted his CD player. When we grew bored of this, he turned on his TVs and we watched a news programme about him. I forget to add that his taxi was the most unique and high tech taxi i have ever sat in. You will find out why in a while. While we were watching the news programme, we found out that he was internationaly famous. He was on BBC and CNN. Apparently, we had stepped into " The Singapore's Singing Cabbie"! So he started singing music and he even had 2 mics in his taxi. It was fully loaded with Karaoke equipment and more! When we finally reached Tanglin Mall, we asked him to signed our books and he did. We were reluctant to leave his cab. I sincerely hope that i would sit in his taxi again. So anyway, we met up with Mrs Teo and we went off in pairs to promote SJII. My assigned pair was with Lousia and we walked with Dan down to some shopping centre and back to Hilton where we stationed ourselves. We found out that some people were just downright rude as they ignored us aas we approached. One even went the other way just to avoid us! We had a hard time trying to get people to stop and read the flyers but i think we did rather well. After distributing the flyers until 5.45, we went back to Tanglin Mall and we dispersed from there. So that kind of rounds up today!

2007-09-10T22:18:00.001+08:00

Sigh... have been rather lazy last week so i didnt blog much. So i will blog now...

On Tuesday, i went to watch Ratatollie with my mum and sister and brother. The movie was good. After the movie, we went to Wheelock to buy crumplers!! I got a Fux Deluxe. Which is rather big.

On Thursday, it was my birthday. Went to Cathay in the morning to watch a movie with Dan, Greggy, Paul, Pat and Scott and not forgetting Yudi. Robert did not come in the end. We watched No Reservations which was ok... Then we went to play Lan. We played for 4 hours straight!! Without eating anything in between. After playing lan, i had to rush home and havbe dinner before hading to Raffle's Hotel to watch a play. It was very boring!!! Or at least, i didnt understand. So that sort of rounds up my birthday.

On Friday, i went for hospital visit. After that, went to watch Last Legion with 2 priest. It was good.

So that sort of rounds up my Sep Holidays!!

Mission World

2007-09-03T20:21:00.003+08:00

A little unclear as i took the video on a 5-tonner with my HP.

SAF Open House

2007-09-03T19:36:00.000+08:00

Today, i went with my brother to the SAF Open House at Pasir Laba Camp. It was extremely fun until it started raining. We went for a event called "Mission World" which means we sat on a 5-Tonner and went on a mission. It was super fun. We saw a Primus artillery and many more tanks. I have a video and some pics but unfortunately, i cant upload them. So anyway, we played a "CS" like game but not really CS. Then we went for a simulation shooting AKA IMT. We shot the new SAR 21 rifles which feels so much nicer than M-16s. After that, it started raining so we went to try out the combat rations. I must say, combat rations are really delicious. It had so much flavour that it is nice. After lunch we went to see some exhibits before going to an IPPT area to try out some of the activities there. They have electronic everything there. They have electronic scales to measure broad jumps, chin-ups, situps and even shuttle run. After doing some of those, we went to my dad's clinic before heading home.

LLTC B Retreat

2007-09-03T19:24:00.000+08:00

Well, had to go for a LLTC B OT Retreat from Sat to Sun. The good side about going for the retreat was that i got to miss Sunday School. The bad side was that my weekend was burned. Thank God for the Sep holidays. So anyway, the retreat was fun, made new friends, sang many songs and tested many games and energizers. Will skip the details on the first night. So, on Sun, the Catholics were woken up early and we went to Risen Chirst for mass. I was still rather tired and what really "killed' me was Fr Ambrose Vaz's homily. It was long, draggy and downright boring. He should learn to be concise. Haha...just joking. What shocked me the most about the church was that 3 priest were present during the mass. Fr AmBROSE Vaz was the main celebrant. Just before consecration, Fr Val popped out and helpped Fr Vaz. After Communion, he vanished just as mysteriously as he appeared. Then, just as mass was about to end, another Chinese priest said the announcements. So, after mass, we went back to SJI and we had a sub com meeting before having a closing reflection before going home. Wanted to go and watch the dance at Plaza Singapura but was so tired that i did not go.

Assessment!!

2007-08-19T19:41:00.000+08:00

I got my term's assessment yesterday. I really do not know whether it is good or not but i think i did quite alright. My results are as such:
Assessment 1 Assessment 2
Math: 7A 6A
English: 5A 5A
Science: 4B 5B
Chinese: 5A 5A
Geography: 6B 5B
History: 6A 6A
Art: 4C 5B
Music: 5B 5B
P.E: B 5B
RME: A B

Anyway, i deproved in certain subjects but also improved. In case anyone is wondering what this grades mean, i will type out the entire grade and effort table.

GRADE
7- Excellent Achievement
6- High Achievement
5- Reasonable Achievement
4- Just Keeping Up
3- Low Achievement
2- Very Low Achievement
1- Negligible Achievement

EFFORT
A= Maximum Effort
B= Good Effort
C= Just Sufficient Effort
D= Inadequate Effort

So that is what my grades means...

A Very Sad Day

2007-08-15T18:19:00.001+08:00

Today, is a very sad day for me. Just one thing spoilt my enitre day. That is... My LLTC badge dropped and got stuck to my shoe without my knowledge. When i was going home, i felt something stuck on my shoe. Thinking it was a rock, i scrapped my shoe on the staris. It would not come off so i just left it and walked home. When i got home, i found out that my badge was missing. I searched high and low for it but to no avail. Finally, remembering about the "rock" stuck in my shoe, i decided to go check. Lo and Behold, the badge was stuck firmly in my shoe, scratched rather badly. I may never wear that badge again as the backing seems to have disappeared. So, that was the event that spoilt my enitre day. Well, i tried putting pictures but they just wont upload properly...so anyway...

2007-08-03T21:42:00.001+08:00

Very inspiring song...

Loola

2007-07-28T11:41:00.000+08:00

Got back to Singapore in 1 piece. Well, maybe not 1 piece but i survived. Had many cuts and accidents but the experience and fun i had at Loola was greater than all this!! This is what i have done in the past week in Loola.

Sunday- Met in school at 10am. Took a ferry to Bintan and subsequently, a bus to Loola. The guys got to sleep in huts for 2 nights and the girls for 3 nights. So, we slept in the huts for the first 2 nights and on the moondeck for the next 3 nights. No activities happened on the first day except for the trust fall activity after dinner. Found out that Paul was a real idiot for reasons i will not reveal...yet.

Monday- Woke up at 6.30am SG time. 8jto had to cook breakfast. Was rather hard on the first day, had lots of trouble with the fire, burnt many pieces of bread. After breakfast we had the low ropes course. It was raining so we were completely drenched while doing the course. Got a very bad gash at the back of my leg while doing the obstacle course. After that we had to swing on a rope from one side to the other. Got a bad rope burn and blister on my hands and legs. After the low ropes course, we had lunch then we went kayking. We walked for about 45min to get to the river. We kayaked down the river and back to Loola. Washed up, bathed then went for dinner or supper as Mr Z calls it. Dinner was extremely good. There always would be meat and tofu. The sleep after a long day was extremely good.

Tuesday- Woke up at 6.50am and rushed to the fire pit. We were late for our morning run. We had to run 3 times the distance as a result. We had to climb a roughly 2.3m high wall after the run. We managed to complete it in 8 mins. We had breakfast after the morning run. I got no idea what actually happened but thee was some disputes between the classes about the breakfast but it was soon settled. We had to walk more than 1 hour to get to the boom netting beach after breakfast. It was truly a blessing as our class were told to get onto a lorry to bring us to the beach but the other class did not. So they walked all the way and according to them, the road was extremely muddy and watery. Boom netting was rather fun until i fell off the third level of the boat onto the bottom deck. I got no idea how i actually survived falling nearly 2 stories without getting injured at all. Not even a bruise. Just a few scratches. Well, everyone had sympathy for me and were running out of the water just to ask if i was alright. What caring friends i have. So after getting over one of the most traumatizing event in the entire camp, i decided not to go into the water anymore and stayed warm with paul and scott. After boom netting , we cooked our own indo mee and then started the trek back to Loola. We got lost at some point in the middle of a kampong/ forest area and the worst thing is that it was dark and there were only 2 torchlights. We finally got back safely and had dinner. Then it was time for the guys to move to the tents. I was rather glad as my hut was extremely smelly and sandy. On the down side, we had to pack everything and move again. I slept on the moondeck with Dan and some other people.

Wednesday- Woke up at 6.30am. My class had to cook breakfast today. It was also the only day that it did not rain during the whole camp. Breakfast went well this time and breakfast was better than the first day. We went rock climbing, flying fox and sailing today. I managed to climb the entire rock wall and then went on to the flying fox. After that, we went for lunch and went sailing. Sailing was scary as me and Greggy were stranded at sea for about half an hour. We were glad and overjoyed when someone came to tow us back to the shallow part of the sea. After sailing we washed up again and had supper. After dinner, we had to go around asking the staff of Loola for ghost stories. Me, Jason and Ryan talked to the person in charge of Loola and he told us about Pontiana. We were really scared as the next day was Thursday.

Thursday- Woke up at 6.45am. Changed and got everyone in 8JTo to wake up. We were, for once, early for our run and finished it in 10min. We climbed the wall again and we got a lower timing. Breakfast was good. After breakfast, we had to build rafts and had to keep it afloat. The moment our raft got about 20 meters out to sea, the raft broke and we resorted to pulling the raft. After the raft race, we had 3 hours to do what we wanted to do. Jason and I decided to go kayaking. We went to an island with Bomb, Hannah, Patrick, Jian Bin and Partrolo. We enjoyed the view from some big rocks then got back to our kayaks at Mr Z's command. Mr Z then brought us round 2 islands and we fought waves. It was extremely fun espically when the kayak rides the wave. After that, we went back to shore for lunch then me and Paul started kayaking again. We did the same route again but this time it wasnt very nice as no waves were present. When we were close to shore, we decided to start capsizing boats and thus, the great capsizing started. We tried to capsize Mr Z's kayak but he was too fast. We had a barbecue for dinner, with satay, indo mee and other stuff. After that we had our campfire. We sang some random songs like Jingle bells before starting on the skits. The best skit was Ben Tan's group. They sang songs like Bad Day and remixed it to formed Bad Egg. After campfire, we went to bed.

Friday- Woke up at 6.45am. Packed up then went for breakfast. Went to an orphanage. I was literally being pelted by marbles. The children there were good. After visting the orphanage, we took the ferry back to Singapore.

The Loola trip had good parts and bad parts but overall, i enjoyed the camp.

First week of school

2007-07-18T19:55:00.000+08:00

Well, i havent really bothered to blog about school since it started but i will blog about the first week of the second semester for me( in point form)

Monday- Nothing special happened except that it was the first day of the new term

Tuesday- Rda

Wednesday- Watched Harry Potter with my brother

Thursday- Nothing happened on Thursday i think

Friday- Nothing happened on Friday either

Saturday- Mass

Sunday- Served the carmalite mass in my church
A priest tokd the bishop that i wanted to be a priest...

Transformers

2007-07-06T22:38:00.000+08:00

Will blog about Tuesday. Watched Ttransformers with my brothers on Tuesday. Was good. Very good graphics and storyline was well put out. Well, that is all i will blog about in this post...

LLTC

2007-06-23T11:23:00.000+08:00

Ok... will post about LLTC. But, i will only post certain parts of it.On the first day of LLTC, we had to walk from SJI to SPS. It was rather hard. We took 3 hours to get to SPS. The walk, however, made my group bond very closely together. That was the highlight for the first day. On the second day, the highlight was the ropes course at ITE Simei. It was rather scary. I had to face my fears of heeights and in the end, finally did it. Had 7 habits which was rather boring until Bro Mike told us to sip water throughout the lesson. My group bonded even better in the second day. On the third day, we went for dragon boating. It was really fun as we got to splash water at the other boats. My boat also won the race. We also rocked the boat such that water was coming over the sides. Thankfully, the boat did not capsize. I was drenched afte rhtat, but had a good time. On the fourth day, we went to a home near my school. I saw Bro Jovita there!!! We cleaned the windows and the swing. We barely talked to the elderly people. After visting the home, we went to junction 8 to eat. Lunch was extremely fun especially when Dickson, the facil attached to my group, hit his hand on chili sauce, ketchup, barbecue sauce and sweet chili sauce in an attempt to trick Brendan, a member of my group. On the last day, we did not do much. We had a very interesting closing ceremony. Overall, i really liked LLTC.

Extension

2007-06-16T22:55:00.001+08:00

Will blog about my second half of my day. Served the sunset mass and novena. Was the only server thank goodness the communion ministers helped me with the offerings. Went for dinner with my uncle after mass. Ate at Hog's Breath in Vivo City. The ribs were okay. A bit of a rip of though. Had to pay for chili sauce etc. Went to Hagandaz for ice cream. Had fondue and a latte. Was nice. Then went to my uncle's offcie which is at keppel tower. Was super nice. He had his own office. The lights were also automatic. Had a nice view from his office down on Sentosa. Went to the chairman's office and it was also nice. Went home after that.

Breakfast with priest

2007-06-16T15:58:00.000+08:00

Today is the Immaculate Heart of Mary. So i woke up early to serve the morning mass again. Was expecting Fr Romeo to say mass but instead Fr Damien sayed the mass. This morning, i could not slack as the Sisters put all the items, Chalice etc, on the table behind me so i had to serve Fr everything. After mass, had breakfast with Fr Damien. Second time having breakfast with priest this week. Had toasted bread with coffee. Made my coffee bad again, dont know where i went wrong. Seriously need to perfect the art of making coffee. So after breakfast, went home, played Wow. At around 12.30pm, i went to Bukit Permai to get my lunch. Played Wow after lunch and now here i am blogging. Going for mass again tonight. Fr Romeo saying evening mass and Fr Damien saying Novena.

Favourite Priest

2007-06-15T18:56:00.000+08:00

This is the top 5 priest i know and of course like:

1) Fr Damien- St Teresa's Church

2) Fr Romeo- St Teresa's Church

3) Fr Arro- St Teresa's Church (m.e.p)

4) Fr Valerian- Holy Cross

5) Fr Jean Baptiste-France (m.e.p)

Hospital visit?

2007-06-15T16:39:00.000+08:00

Well, today is Friday, which means hospital visit day again. Woke up at 6am to serve mass in church. Was rather slack as Fr Romeo did everything himself as the table was next to him. Fr Jean Baptiste Con-Celebrated the mass. By the way, Fr Jean Baptiste is a French priest who is just visiting Singapore. Mass went smoothly. After mass, i had breakfast with both of the priest. Got to know Fr Jean Baptiste more and he told me a lot of facts about Europe. He talked about the change in technology and some other stuff over breakfast. He is leaving Singapore for France tonight. From what i heard from Fr Romeo, and later confirmed by Fr Jean Baptiste himself, he, Fr Jean Baptiste, is or at least was the vicar of the Mission Etrangeres de Paris aka M.E.P.That means that he is second only to the Superior General of M.E.P. A friend of my churches' parish priest, who is also part of the M.E.P. So after breakfast, i went to Fr Romeo's room to find han yu pin yin for some Chinese words but that gave me a headache since all the Chinese words were in "normal" Chinese. So Fr Damien came down for hospital visit then we left. Was pouring! So he dropped me at the sheltered area then i took out an umbrella from the boot and apprantely, i did not close it properly! So Fr only noticed it when he parked the car and so had to get out of the car with a small umbrella to close it. Naturally, he was drenched! I was waiting unknown about this in the hospital. So, i received a phone call and was told to go back to the sheltared area where he picked me up and we left the hospital. So we did not really do our hospital visit. Anyway, we were left with 2 choices, to go back to church and most probarly hear Fr Romeo laughing at us or got to the East. We went to the East. First stop was Fr Damien's cousin's house which i have to say was rather messy. Fr had to bless the house but could not find the crucifix. We looked high and low for it and finally, after 45min of searching, we found it. We cleared many things out of the house including some cooking spices and well, basically junk. About 5 or 6 plastic bags went down the garbage shoot. We still had 2 bags and a box of junk to bring down! So after blessing the house, we went to Haig road i think to get fishes and then to eat. After that we went back to the car which was at Fr's cousin's house void deck. By chance, we stumbled upon the cleaners clearing the garbage shoot. If i am not wrong, Fr asked them to clear mattresses which were in his cousin's house. He loaned $10 from me to pay the workers. Seems that he ran out of money. So after that, we went to the bank at Joo Chiat Complex so that he could withdraw money and pay his insurances. On the way, we passed the president's house which was tightly guarded. Fr asked me if i wanted to see the First Lady, which i think is the president's wife. According to Fr, he knows here rather well. So we went to Joo Chiat Complex to do some banking stuff then we went to buy pots as Fr complained that 2 pots were broken. So he bought a pot, 8 tea spoons and half a cruitte. Which was basically 1 vinegar dispenser, or something like that. So after that, i was sent home. And here i am now...

Server's Movie Screening

2007-06-11T22:44:00.000+08:00

Sigh, today was my churchs' servers movie screening. The server met in church at 10am and then had the rosary before having spiritual input by Father Damien. Next we had a practice. I did not attend it as i was busy photocopying paper for servers who always lose their files. So after my so called ordeal was over, i went into church to watch the practice before preparing for the funeral mass at 1pm. SO had lunch at 12.45 with Father Damien in the kitchen and rushed off to change into my cassock for mass. Mass went rather smoothly, got an Ang Pao, went to the ********* to watch Shrek 3. By the way, the ******** bit is not suppose to be revealed. So after the movie, we had tea. The core group members, including me, had to figure out who vomited outside the church as no one owned up. After tea, which was nuggets and apple pies from mac donalds, we played some stupid and really irrritating games. We played a sadistic game of Dog and Bone. I hated it. We had to crawl, hop, duck walk, run, jump, "wheelbarow" and even roll on the floor to retrive a ball in the center. I was really outraged at this, most probaly because i had to do it myself, and even wanted to quit the servers. After that we went for mass sweating and smelly. After mass, some people went into the sarcristy to play DOTA. 2 Laptops were used and they were playing and making noise inside the sarcristy!

Hospital Visits

2007-06-08T21:52:00.000+08:00

Well, today is Friday and what i always do on Fridays during holidays is to go for a hospital visit with a priest. I reached church at 9.30 am so i could learn some basic chinese prayers but to no avail. We left at around 10.30 and we finished at around noon. Me and Father Damien visited about 6 patients. So after the hospital visit, we went back to church to pick Father Romeo up and went to Vivo City for lunch. Went grocery shopping after lunch with the 2 priests and then we went back to church where i sorted out the SJII Arts Week photos taken by Fr Damien. At around 2.30pm, me and Father Damien went for a wake at Clementi. Met Father Valerian there. After the wake, we went to Holy Cross to see the church together with Father Valerian since he is one of the priest there. Anyway, i also found out that Holy Cross is under renovation and that now, no more than 5 cars can park within the churches' compound.

Class Outing

2007-06-05T08:21:00.000+08:00

Had class outing yesterday. I woke up at 6am, went for morning mass with my parents and then went to eat roti prata for breakfast. Played a little GB for a while agt home before leaving the house to go to Pasir Ris. I was there too early! Met Jian Bin at the MRT station and shortlly after, met Gabriel, Paul Wong and Scott Lim. They played a small fool inside 7/11. We moved to White Sands when Daniel came. Me and Daniel bought ice creams and bought the Shrek Ears. When Mr Justin finally came, we took a walk to Pasir Ris Park to rent a bicycle. We cycled around Pasir Ris for about 1 hour and stopped at the playground to play. Unfortunately, it started to rain heavily. So some of us were stuck at a small shelter. When the rain subsided a little, we decided to charge to a nearby coffeehouse where the rest of the class were. I was soaking by the time i reached the coffeehouse. We were stuck there for about 45min and then when the rain subsided, we decide to cycle back to the kiosk. Halfway there however, the rain stopped so we decide to just roam around for about half an hour. After returning the bicycles, we walked to Downtown East to eat. After lunch, we played a few games in the arcade before walking to the MRT station. I only had mashed potato for dinner and after that, i went to sleep.