Heads up Eusoff

We lost against Sheares today by a couple of points. We were leading 32-29 in the last 30 secs of the last quarter and we held a good defence for over 20secs but left one guy open for a 3 in the last few seconds and he made it. Went into overtime and we lost the game. Overall performance we were pretty okay everyone was definitely fighting and putting in a lot of effort. But careless mistake here and there cost us the game. Compared to all the friendlies we had so far I played a lot more today. Went in the during second quarter and played deep into the third and came back for the last few minutes of OT. Did well defensively today but no points. The Sheares players and supporters must have been cursing and calling for fouls each time I challenge their player for the ball. Oh well, that's basketball and this is a university not secondary school anymore. Grazed my elbow and my wound from the RH friendly burst open again during one of the hustles. A pretty ugly sight, hope it dries up and heals soon.

Down down down...

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse. Intended to leave home around 9am to get back to hall and set up my desktop and print all my notes. In the end I left home around 6+pm. Hours after hours of having a flicking screen, the com chain crash, reformatting installing etc... Had to bring back so much stuff my sister followed my back to hall to help. After setting up the desktop here it still was kinda screwed, she messed with it a little then it totally died out. A little later she got it working again and it's much better now by every now and then the screen goes crazy and sometimes it crashes. By the time everything was done had only about an hour left to try some of the mastering physics questions. A short training and team talk from 930 - 11, one of the few things that went right today. Tomorrow will be our first match against Sheares and we need to perform and win by as much as possible.

Ever since September last year things have just been continuously going wrong. The com even has to chain crash 4 times while I was typing this sigh. I never asked for much or for the world, but it seems even the little things I want just fall apart before me. I wonder when things will pick up for real and not give me just another slap in the face... Maybe all of this is really a mistake and I should have gone straight into NIE after army... I miss life before NUS, I miss my army days, I miss the times in PJ with the bballers and the 04S21 gang, I miss the days back in Gan Eng Seng and the endless bballin'...

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Chinese New Year has arrived once again! As usual it was lunch at my Dad's side followed by dinner at my mum's side. At my paternal grandma's place it was pretty hilarious at the end cause my mum mentioned my grandma pulled her into a room and then my mum pulled my dad along. Turns out my grandma asked my mum whether my sister has a boyfriend yet and how a lot of young ladies these days are not getting married especially those who are already working and doing well. Reached my maternal grandma's side in the late afternoon and we were the first to arrive. Did one of the EG1413 critiques while waiting. Despite yesterday being a rather sad day, had some other idea suddenly and I continued to develop and work on it while at my maternal grandma's place. It's quite shocking for even myself to see how it's evolved with different ideas since the beginning, but I'll have to bring it to closure soon and I'm very thankful for the way it's been turning out so far. A number of relatives weren't around this year though, the place seemed rather empty compared to the last few years. Carlsberg seems very rich haha on some show on the television celebrities were going around looking for people drinking Carlsberg and picking some to take part in some mini-games and giving them cash, and some of them got like over a thousand lol. That wraps up all the visiting and tomorrow it's time to shift my desktop to hall, print and organise all my stuff and get some studying and tutorials done before school starts again on Wednesday! Not to forget that there's IHG basketball against Sheares on Wednesday night too!

Sigh....

Dropped by pastor Vic's place in the morning to pass him the gift from the Secondary One cluster. Went a little too early and it seemed like they weren't up yet, so I went to the coffeeshop to grab a drink while waiting. Michelle sms-ed me just as I finished my drink and I headed back over. It was quite hilarious as Pastor Vic was still kinda half-awake and when I wished him happy birthday he accidentally greeted me the same lol.

I intended to head back to hall to settle some stuff before coming home for reunion dinner but things went terribly wrong... After getting off the bus I headed to the traffic light to cross the road when I suddenly realised that my laptop wasn't with me. Rushed back to the bus stop to check if there was any hotline I could call but the lines were closed. Waited for a cab to go down to Jurong East interchange to make a report at the office there but there were like no cabs. Had to call for one in the end. Reached the interchange and made a report, they searched the buses but found nothing. Left my details with them and went to a coffeeshop nearby to just hang around for awhile hoping to get some good news. Time passed and nothing happened, so I headed towards home and dropped by the Cantonment Police Complex to make a police report before heading home. At least it's early in the semester and I didn't lose many documents, plus my photos are up onto snapfish so I didn't lose them. BUT THE MINUTES I TOOK DOWN FOR TREASURE HUNT CAMP COMM DEBRIEF IS GONE arghhh. Downloaded all my stuff from IVLE to my desktop PC. Going to have to bring it back to hall on Tuesday and print all my notes and tutorials now that I can't move around with a laptop. Oh well......

Friendly vs RH

The friendly today(friday) went pretty badly... Final score was 36-37 Jason said we won but we're not sure, and seriously the way we played it doesn't matter either. We have the advantage of having many experienced players, we just need to perform and go all out for just that 4 quarters. Sloppy passes, slow help on defence, rushed offence, we can definitely do a lot better. But today is just a friendly, now we move towards IHG. Break till the 27th night when we'll be preparing for the 28th match. For now, its time to recover from this week of training... My wrist has been aching for the last 2 or so days for no apparent reason, shoulder aching from game, my toe was busted and now its a little swollen and grazed my knees as usual. Just more bloody this time. I think it'll be a miracle if I ever make it out of a match without any grazes.

I NEED TO FIRE UP

Flared up quite a bit during training today, but the good thing is I play a lot better offensively once enraged haha. I play a lot more aggressively without being reckless. But I should be doing that ALL THE TIME.

I NEED TO TAKE MORE SHOTS. Even if I'm not so used to SRC I can't let it steal my confidence.
I NEED TO DRIVE MORE. Why wait till enraged?
I NEED TO CRASH THE BOARD. What's the use of being able to grab the ring but not get the rebounds?
I NEED TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE ON THE OFFENCE. I may cause a few turnovers being aggressive on defence, but you can't win without points.
I WANT TO WIN IHG. With ALL I've got.

PC1432 lecture was a nightmare today, all of a sudden surface integrals and integration over a closed surface etc starting popping out of nowhere! Really need to find time to sit down and catch up on PC1432. Training again today, have a feeling I'll KO in math lecture tomorrow again sigh...

Tiringgggg day. lessons from 8-6 today with a one hour break and a two hour break. After that it was volleyball from 7-9 and basketball from 9-11. Kinda just switched off during the early part of basketball and wasn't concentrating, totally off for the defence drills. If I don't get to represent for the other sports it's fine, but I really want to bring home the champion title for basketball. It's been years since I've played in a proper competition. The sound of people players and coaches shouting, shoes squeaking against the indoor flooring, shrill cry of the referees' whistles cutting through; yeah those were the days...

Training this week has really intensified, monday volleyball and basketball, tuesday basketball, wednesday basketball, thursday volleyball. Supposed to have training and friendly on friday as well but it'll be cell as usual.

I'm thinking either I need to buy a few more shirts, or I need to do my laundry more often cause my wardrobe seems rather empty lately! Or maybe I should just do both haha.

The urban room was finally completed on friday (But I have no good pictures -_-)!!! It looks soooo good and I must say Alina's idea of having a spotlight in the corner of the room made an incredible difference. The ambience when you switch off the main lights and leave just the spotlight on is just wow.

Caught Red Cliff 2 with Eunice and Zhongkai after the Math lecture on Saturday. Really good show man could easily watch it again haha. The part where Cao Cao gives his "motivational speech" to his soldiers to get their fighting spirit up after being hit by typhoid reminded me of something I read about Hitler some time back. For all the atrocities we blame the brains behind the operations and the hideous mastermind, we have to realise at the end of the day that it was carried out and completed by the hands of everyday men and women like you and me. Many a times carried out fervently too. The way the soldiers get back up and their feet and started chanting as an army, scary. Wonder if they even knew what they were fighting for. Completely opposite from the Sun Quan and Liu Bei's army. Even Xiao Qiao could say that she came for the people of the land and not just for her husband. SmashT Cao Cao, SmashT. The final battle once again shows that infantry are nothing but cannon fodder haha, scores of soldiers getting raped by bows and catapults. Gan Xing would be my hero of the battle for suicide bombing down one of the gates so the rest could push through. Overall it's needless to say Zhu Ge Liang is the smartest of them all, not to mention the quirkest (Master tactician who plays music, studies the weather, farms, helps cows give birth??) haha. Speaking of Zhu Ge Liang everytime he appeared the row of China girls behind us kept going "hao shuai ah hao shuai ah" then one of them would say "shuai dan shi bu shi xi huan ni", hilarious.

Pastor Jenn preached at service and on the effects of transformation. Speaking from Acts 9 she shared regarding Saul's (later known as Paul) transformation, how he received a new task, made new enemies, had new friends and bore new fruit. New enemies and friends I guess can be a very real thing for many people, when old friends don't agree with the choices we make, when we become torn between faith and friends. Which of course reminds us of the need for good company; Hebrews 12:24-24 "And let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." A time to think of what the people we're close to are like and how we're like to the people around us; are we leading them in the right way (and vice versa)?

That was saturday, and today (sunday) was a mad rush in the morning because I forgot to return the urban room keys on friday, and also forgot to bring it to church on saturday -_-. To make things worse the keys were in hall and I went back home on saturday night. So I had to rush down to hall to grab the keys then rush down to church since the prayer ministry was using it in the morning. Managed to reach near 830 and pass the keys to Yi Sin. Went down to the National library to study after that. The study room was full so early in the morning! Went to the central borrowing area in B1 instead. it was a pretty nice place to study except that I could not get the wireless internet working (some security certificate problem) and after leaving for lunch I lost my seat. Borrowed some books that looked pretty interesting, hopefully I'll have the time to read them with tutorials and IHG trainings intensifying. Off to the treasure hunt committee debrief and dinner, I asked for it to be on a weekend cause all my weekday nights during the holidays were either training/DP sets, but now sets continues tonight and basketball training as well, smashT.

Totally exhausted by the end of yesterday. Started the morning in church painting the urban room till lunch. We finished 3 walls and part of the top before our lunch break. The rest continued after lunch but I headed back to hall to get some rest before my lectures. At night it was back to IHG training. 2 hour slots seem really fast now, the lights of the MPC went out just so fast. After basketball I had to complete my road relay run again, 3x of the actual route. Works out to be ~6km maybe? It was just sooooo tiring especially with all the slopes. Completed the run around midnight. This is like a mini preview of sundown haha, gonna be a tiring and cold run! Heading to the urban room again later today to clean the floor for the last time before we sent the furniture into it's new arrangement. But now it's time to finish watching Red Cliff so that I can follow Red Cliff 2 tomorrow!

Apparently the gym yesterday afternoon and volleyball training at night took more out of me than I had expected, slept through the first half of MA lecture this morning, sigh. I guess I will really have to spent the weekend mugging to catch up with all of this week's lecture especially since most of my time will be going into the urban room revamp. I'm still thinking of catching Red Cliff 2 though, pretty sure if I don't do it this weekend I won't at all with the tutorials, labs and IHG all coming up.

The URBAN REVIVALISTS ARE HERE!!!! Bringing new life to the urban room! We started after lunch moving all the furniture out into the corridor before proceeding to clean all of it and the entire interior of the room. Greeted by many dead cockroaches, their "spare parts" as Titus called them and also a lizard flattened behind the whiteboard (We were guessing it's the one we saw run behind the board during the last treasure hunt meeting). The room is seriously SO DIRTY lah, the pails of water looked more like some oil spill scene hahaha. After Alina finished class a few of us went down to Holland V to get the paint. The price per litre was a lot cheaper than what we budgeted for, but the amount we needed was much more than we had budgeted for. But we managed to get the colours we wanted and the guy at the shop was really nice and helped us with advise of amounts of paint needed, telling us to use whitewash for the concrete and an oil-based primer for the shutters before we started the actual painting. Helped us work to the lowest cost possible as well ($30 for 5 litres). Watching him prepare the paint was cool too, he placed an empty can and keyed in some stuff into a machine and it vomitted the right colour out into the can.
Painting the room was the long, messy and fun part! Everyone ended up having paint splattered all over themselves because of the rollers. I highly overestimated the amount of area one can of spray paint could cover, after the can was running low I just sprayed some of our names on the shutter tops instead. Most had to leave pretty early and soon it was down to Melodi, Alina, Kevin and myself. After Melodi left we continued to finish up till all the walls, ceilings and shutters had been painted with the whitewash/primer. After all the painting was done we scrubbed the paint stains off the floor and moved all the furniture back in. When we finished we realised it was already past 10! Time really flew man. Fortunately Kevin and Alina gave me a lift back to hall or I would be back a lot later. Fong Seng for dinner AGAIN. I'm started to get scared of that place lol. Brought the cushion covers back to hall for washing, hopefully they aren't bald after I take them out of the washing machine later hahaha! We're going to start painting the actuals colours tomorrow, can't wait to see it done!

Goals and reflections...

With just 2 hours of PC1432 lecture in the afternoon I had a lot of time to settle other stuff. Got down to filling up the goal setting sheet Alina prepared for us last cell. Thought about how I've been changing mostly since my JC days, personality, strengths and weaknesses etc... I guess a good place to start thinking of where to move towards is to look at where you've come from and where you're at...

Some abstractions from personality profiling:

"It is not easy for the INTJ to express their internal images, insights, and abstractions. The internal form of the INTJ's thoughts and concepts is highly individualized, and is not readily translatable into a form that others will understand. However, the INTJ is driven to translate their ideas into a plan or system that is usually readily explainable, rather than to do a direct translation of their thoughts. They usually don't see the value of a direct translation, and will also have difficulty expressing their ideas, which are non-linear."
Yup, excuse me if I have trouble explaining what I'm thinking at times; sometimes it really is quite a task for me to try and explain whats in my mind...

"...observer, values solitude, perfectionist, detached, private... does not talk about feelings, hard to impress, analytical, likes esoteric things..."
My tendency to appear aloof and apart from others as well as some degree of self-confidence generally causes people to think I'm some arrogant guy but I really ain't. Perfectionist; a great blessing and a great curse. Makes for high standards, but also makes it hard for one to settle for even just a little less. Went down to Art Friend again today( considering the number of times I've been there in the last few months I'm pretty sure all the counter staff recognise me by now) to get something that would provide a gloss finish since the lacquer I had lying around since '07 was more of a matte finishing that wasn't what I wanted. Granted the dimensions of what I was using it for was rather small and probably nobody would actually notice the difference, but to me it was a "vital minor detail" much as it sounds oxymoronic. Does not talk about feelings; probably my greatest of pitfalls. I've always felt communication is terribly important, but it seems I'm equally terrible at it. Kills especially when it comes to relationships. At home little is ever said and with friends it's often so too. Even she once said "bearing all your stoic silence and reserved nature". Regrettably so.

"INTJs live much of their lives inside their own heads. They constantly scan their environment for new ideas and theories which they can turn into plans and structures. Sometimes, what they see and understand intuitively within themselves is more pure and "perfect" than the reality of a close personal relationship. INTJs may have a problem reconciling their reality with their fantasy."
Being an observer, analytical, idealist/perfectionist, I guess such a conclusion is hard to escape from...

"INTJs are not naturally in tune with their own feelings, or with what other people are feeling."
Pretty sure I'm in tune with mine, but I know I definitely can be rather obvious and insensitive to others at times and I really don't mean to. On my last BOS duty when my RSM spent some time talking to me about my time in 6SIR, how I had been doing and about my plans post ORD even he told me to be careful cause there were times I seem harsh on people, cut them down or am insensitive even though I don't realise it and may not mean it. Sometimes I'm more sensitive and pick up stuff people don't, but I guess it's really a concious effort and something I have to keep working at.

"Don't Get Isolated"
I guess that can be a great pitfall for me as well. Being independent really isn't a great thing; all too easy to just end up doing everything on my own.

First Day of School!

Monday bluessss anyone? 3 lectures (5hrs worth) and an additional 2h of seminar once Eg1413 starts next week woooo. Daryl, Sean and Ivan all siam-ing PC1432 this semester because they don't want to take so many engine-ish modules in 1 semester in case they die. I was thinking the same too, but now I wonder why considering PC1431 was one of my best modules last sem -_- Lab intensive semester though, EG1108, PC1432 and MA1506. Seriously, lab for MATH???

The plans for the urban room have been approved, but we still have to settle the stores and time that most people can make it down for the cleaning and painting. We're planning to start work on wednesday, may everything go well, school proper next week and it'll be a bad time to still be working on the urban room!

Please don't let me fall sick now...

First cell proper yesterday, and we were just one person short of full strength! Seems the twins are coming regularly now, think the camp really made an impact on them. On a whole they were pretty attentive. Unfortunately in service they were more disruptive and disturbed the people around us, but I believe over the weeks it'll get better! Now we sit together as a cell for service, though that means no more sitting with the NUS peeps =/.

Woke up with a lil' headache today, and now it's getting worse and I can feel my temperature rising. Feels just like the time I was sick during mid-terms, I don't wanna go through that again, especially not when I'm starting school tml and IHG is just around the corner! Probably won't be able to attend basketball and road relay training today, sigh. Was down at Bras Basah browsing stuff and Liane happened to be at Bugis, but she was already having lunch so I couldn't meet her for lunch. Headed back to hall and wow, what a gigantnormous amount of clothes in the laundry room lol! Going to grab some sleep now, hopefully I'll be better when I'm up!

I don't want school to start, I want to work on the Urban Room!

Getting back into the pace of road relay training, did the 20min jog 8 upslopes at PGP in the morning before meeting Alina to discuss the revamp of the Urban room. It's so exciting! Wish school wasn't starting next week and we could work on the room instead =/. We spent 3 hours in the urban room measuring the dimensions of practically everything in the room from the the furniture to the walls and discussing how we wanted to rearrange the room, new stuff we wanted to buy and colours we wanted to paint the walls. After the planning was done we had lunch and headed to Ikea to scout for the stuff we needed and to come up with a budget. Alina suddenly had this super cool idea of using the stuff there to simulate the furniture and walls so we could have a rough idea of what it would look like when the colours came together. Hopefully the budget gets approved and we can start next week! Going to need a good full day to move out all the furniture and do a thorough cleaning of the whole place before we starting painting and rearranging the place.

Cell today was pretty long but many important things were covered and it was a great start to the first cell of the year and to the new composition of cellies. Quite a bit of homework as well, but it's good that we're given time to think about it since it does require quite a lot of thought if it is to mean anything. Jamie shared a prayer request for a masseur whom she met for a day during her holiday in China. She shared the gospel in Chinese and took down her address which she used to send her a letter and a chinese bible. An amazing testimony, pray the package gets through to her!

Sometimes it's just too hard to make what's on paper into reality; where transitions from paper and paper to mediums and materials fail. While there's usually a way too work around it to get it close to what it should be, it still isn't as ideal as one hoped it would be. Oh well.

Second last night of sets today, half way through our work the cable of the circular saw Weng Ee was using blew up and caused a trip for the foyer. Fortunately nobody was injured. We're coming close to completing all the structures but still a gazillion leaves that need to be cut and painting which will around February.

Breaking the Habit Live: They sound sooo good live, just like when they played in SG the year before and they sound even better than studio recordings. No vocals from Shinoda in this song though, sad.

Breaking The Habit [Live At Milton Keynes] - Linkin Park

We Made It: Bust Rhymes feat. Linkin Park. A less screamy Chester, an opening with Shinoda on the piano before he raps for the second verse. Shinoda ftw! The way he raps is just so different from everyone else, as are his lyrics.

We Made It feat. Linkin Park Official Music Video - Busta Rhymes

Bo Ke gei wo ni de zhui hao, gei wo ni de yi qie!!!! Shun bian gei wo yi ke Green Tea Latte...

Road relay training is starting again. Today's task was to run the actual route 3 times; once jogging, once running and the last one chionging. 11.46.4, 10.52.7, 10.34.7. The last run was mad, especially since I haven't been training much recently. The slope from Clementi Road up through Kent Ridge Cresent (Central Library) killed me during the last run. My thighs just burned all the way up and by the time I crossed the peak of the slope I dropped to a slow jog cause my legs couldn't take it. Fortunately it was downhill from there so I could push myself to stride and take advantage of the downward terrain for the last stretch.

My clothes have been gathering at home instead of hall so I decided to make a trip home to pick up some clothes. Since I didn't really have much to do in the afternoon I dropped by the Starbucks at Liang Court to visit Olivia before heading home. What Pastor Vic said the other day was really true, at Starbucks you can bring a drink back to the counter saying it's not done properly and they'll make a new one for you. Oli was so afraid I would ask her to remake one haha. Spent a few hours there drawing and having a green tea latte. Tried drawing some new stuff today and learn quite a few interesting things. The outlet seemed pretty busy even though it was past lunch hour, and just as Oli had mentioned there were a lot of Japanese customers.

At night it was back to Eusoff for volleyball training! I can actually serve properly much more consistently now though I still occasionally land the ball in the net. Spiking and first ball is still bad though. Next training is on thursday morning but clashes with basketball, sian. After training had to complete a 20min slow jog for road relay. My legs are like jelly from all the running and jumping today haha. Fong Seng for supper cause I was so hungry and now it's time to hit the sack!

Terribad training and bidding...

I have no idea what I was doing during the 5 on 5's today. All my shots were badly off target, missed a couple of fastbreaks and under basket shots even -_-. Picked up a little during the last set but it's still a terribad performance for the day. No where near in shape for IHG. Joined handball training today to start picking up the game. But that was rather hard since after warm-up they played two 20 minute games and I just helped keep time and scores. Left during the final debrief since most of what they'll say will just escape me anyway. All watching and no practice = epic fail. Could roughly see what the wave was about, but figuring out the entire game + 3 set plays without stepping into the court is just impossible.

All the Singapore Studies modules I was considering are either not available this round or clashes with my other lectures/exams. Not much choice of modules to bid for either. In the end took PC1432 and then just dumped 1.2k for Critical thinking and Writing together with Ivan. Vacancies 4 bidders 8; hope we get it! Otherwise going to have to wait till the next rounds to bid for either a GEM or SS, but considering that for GEMs I want to take Science of Music and Reading Visual Images which are both hot modules, it's going to be pretty tough, so hopefully just get critical thinking and problem solved! Got to grab some sleep before sets tonight, hopefully my headache will be gone when I'm up...

Results, bidding and Sec1 gathering!

Pastor Vic was talking about cleaning up the urban room during Treasure Hunt, removing unwanted furniture, rearrange the room and even paint it to give it a new leash of life. Was wondering about designing the walls so it wouldn't be so plain. Two things I was thinking about was a feeling of "home and rest" since it's usually used for cell and also about prayer since the prayer ministry always uses the urban room for it's sunday meetings. Got down to some sketching in the morning while uploading photos. Didn't complete the sketch and got more than half of my albums up on snapfish. Liane replied an sms and was asking me not to be too disheartened by my results, but when I replied I think I sounded a little pissed, hopefully she wasn't offended or anything =/. Sighs, CAP 3.03 means this coming sem I need like at least 4.0 or something to pick myself up. First round of bidding ENDS tomorrow and I still have no idea what to bid for. With MLE, MA1506 and EG 1108 pre-allocated I'm thinking PC 1432 might kill me.

In the afternoon made a trip down to Takashimaya's Art Friend instead of the usual Bras Basah outlet to see how much they differed and take a look around for some upcoming stuff. There's some other shop called Creative Hands or something like that next door and sells cheaper glass paints than Popular!

Had a secondary one leaders gathering at Rachel Chiu's place. Her actual place isn't ready yet so she's staying temporarily at Hume Avenue, upon entering I realised it's where Swong stays! Too bad she isn't back in SG, or I could drop by to say hi and pick up my ring I left at her place ages ago. Some major miscommunication about getting to her place, I assumed everyone would be meeting at Bukit Batok MRT at 1730 so I didn't reply Abby's sms but it turns out everyone found some other way to go there so nobody was going to meet there. So I sat there from 1710 till 1745 before I called Abby only to find out there was nobody was meeting there. Fortunately Pastor Vic was picking up Jamie from West Mall and though they already left they were near enough to come back and pick me up as well. Great time of friends, food and games at her place. Clarence cooks! New discovery today haha. Everyone went crazy over some game Pastor Vic was given for Christmas that was meant for ages 8 and above LOL. We even did variations like pairing up to tag team for a best-out-of-3 competition. Catchphrase, ice cream and guesstures later in the night. Discussing with Ivan what modules to bid for now, our ideal Eg1413 slot is gay bid points at the moment, hopefully we can settle on something!

Basketball friendly with Hall 10 from NTU today, it went rather ok but they didn't go all out against us. I'm focusing too much on the plays and missed a lot of opportunities, should just let the play flow on its own and take shots whenever I can. Was rushing the shots as well, defensively was ok managed to stick on my player and pressure him till a turnover. Didn't really play much but later in the day still felt pretty tired, especially during leaders cell; it was probably due to the lack of proper sleep the past week with camp and all.

At service today Pastor Jenn was sharing off 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 on transformation. "Trans" meaning going beyond and on the the other side and "form" or "forma" in latin meaning beauty. So transforming is like becoming beautiful. She also shared a quote from somewhere that said "The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to make the Child of God like the Son of God". Made me think of 2 Timothy 3:16-17; "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."

The cell went to cafe cartel for dinner to have a celebration just before Kevin heads into army. Some mess up with the orders resulted in everyone getting their food except me. By the time we asked to check what happened most people were finishing or half done with their food so I decided to go up to kopitiam to grab a quick meal instead of re-ordering and waiting all over again. After dinner we prayed for Kevin and most of the cell went to Giraffe to chill but I decided to head home and try to get some rest instead. I've decided to give the family chalet a miss, I can't afford to miss anymore trainings or sets meetings, missed waaayyy too much of it because of advance and treasure hunt already. Mum's not very happy but oh well, I don't really have a choice.

Growing and bearing fruits

Cell on friday was a short sharing by Keith on John 15 followed by a time of reflection and sharing by everyone on how 2008 has been and the things we've seen ourselves grown in. Just sitting there hearing what and how people shared was encouraging and also opened my eyes to things they could and perhaps even are starting to grow in as this year begins. Though I won't be around much to see it happen, I trust it will come to pass =)

Uploaded the picture I wanted to use as my header but the black is pretty obviously different though. Ideas anyone?

IHG is soooo near!

And the last few weeks I've been at advance and treasure hunt, haven't been able to train properly. 5km run this morning followed by 100 free throws, 50 forty-five degree 2's and 25 forty-five degree 3's. It's my second run since stan chart (first was at advance), need to pick up the pace of training again, sundown in May! Shooting was ok but near the end could really feel the exhaustion kicking in and worse still, when I'm doing 3's. Probably gym in the afternoon. Joining the NUS cell tonight since there's no leaders cell. Keith's emails were rather hilarious; one email he says it will be an informal outing and sharing session and should not be in church, then the next he says we will be meeting as previously mentioned, in church same time same place haha.

Treasure Hunt and the New Year!

Incoming long wall of text! A summary would probably be better I guess. The first day of camp went smoothly and the session sharing was on Genesis 12:2 "And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." It was the theme verse of our camp and also the same verse that on the bookmark Liane gave me for Christmas. That turned out to be what the camp was anchored around for myself.

The camp committee was split to different groups to help them and mingle with the campers whenever we were free( which turned out to be not much at all lol) and I was given Geldermalsen. Sat down during some of the free time to make a card to encourage them and spur them on!


Day two composed of the a morning and evening session and a spiritual spa in the afternoon. It was probably what I enjoyed the most. I was assigned to the gifts station where I just had to remind the groups who came of the instructions. I was free to do what I wanted after that. Since I had 3 hours and all the left over materials used for the gifts were there I got down and as Pastor John later commented, "you're always at it".

Spent the time writing on the mosaic tiles and also did 2 stones with wax. A "bless" stone for Pastor John and "Lead" and "Delight" tiles for Pastor Vic and Alina. A lot of people started asking for stones but well, there were only 6 to start with and worse still later the feather died so I couldn't write anymore. As I worked on the tiles some campers started asking if they could take them ( I was sitting on the floor and using a chair as a table so the completed tiles were on the chair not the gifts table).
It was pretty cool when some of the campers who were waiting to go the the next station sat down and then asked me if I could help them do special tiles for other campers they wanted to bless. Even had to do delivery for some of the tiles, felt like angel and mortal again haha. A camper even asked one for her dad since his birthday was coming, pretty heartwarming! Did some for some of the NUS cell peeps as well. =)


Day three was ALL OUT GAMES! From morning through the afternoon it was just games, so much so that Gab and some others were pretty sun burnt by the end of it. The maze in the morning was really fun and of course it was fun to go in and hide in the corners to scare the campers hahaha. Especially Rachel and Sin Ee who for some strange reason were crawling on fours and almost crawled right into me!

Afternoon games saw Bob's hilarious pampers relay and our ultimate slip N slide game that very literally allowed people to smell you from afar once you were done. To think the Thai fish sauce that was the smelliest wasn't added and it was already so potent! During the celebration night the groups put up some really good skits.


On day four it was time to break camp, and here's our camp "theme song"

More than I could hope or dream of
You have poured Your favour on me
One day in the house of God is
Better than a thousand days in the world

So blessed, I can't contain it...
So much, I've got to give it away,
Your love taught me to live now...
You are more than enough for me.

Lord, You're more than enough for me
Lord, You're more than enough for me



After camp it was back to hall and sets again after soooo long. Feel pretty bad that I missed out so much of the sets building. Looks like most of the structures are complete already and the foyer is getting packed. We cut work early at 2230 to have a steamboat together as we entered into 2009!



Decided on a design for the blog title at last, just need to do it on black paper and get it up soon. Snapfish dones't allow album linking to blogs at the moment, it says "available in mid January" on it's website so I guess I have lots of time to upload my albums.