Saturday, August 25, 2007

Me: Daddy! ......Daaaaddy! .............DAAADDDYYYY!!!!!

................................

Mum (from another corner of the house): Daddy's not home la.

Me: Oh.

-_-"

-blessed
1:26 PM

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The First Day of School.

Since SMU starts the latest among all the universities, I had an extra long holiday that passed by much too quickly...

I can't believe 4 months have flown by just like that!!!!! MyWORD. Speaking of myword, today I was pleasantly surprised by the Dodo, a.k.a Emma. While having Macs breakfast (I think that's gonna be a common occurance now since we end class at 10 and the next one is at 12) we were just talking and I went, "OhmyWord", and he remarked, "Haha, her (my) exclamations all so unique one: Warrao, OhmyWord..."

Yay! :) Thank You Lord, for helping me to be different. (Though I'm still working on it.) I don't want to be the same, I don't wanna use the swear words or exclamations my friends in school use... I wanna shine for You! :)

-blessed
12:32 AM

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Man I love having hols.

Definition of a true-blue holiday:
-no homework, no projects (basically no deadlines)
-no work

a.k.a Free and Easy all day! Wheee!

Have been waking up at 12 since yesterday, and it feels good. :D Pity I only have 3 days more of this. Haha... But I've done up a list of to-dos! Was packing my stuff and today I sat down and read through old diaries... Here's an excerpt!! :D (Pardon the poor grammar and many short forms)

9 July '02
anw sunday sam, tim, jon, alvin, rena, jo khor, jo tay, val, sheela and i went 2 celebrate my bdae! Went PS! and val made a paper bag!! ahh so cool! jo k + val -> holy spirit guidebk! nice! jon -> 3 stuff toys! ahh! alvin -> op shirt! Ahh! grandaunt treated me whole thing n i was so touched! watched minority report, nice yet shocking yet gross! when e woman grabbed Tom Cruise i swallowed my popcorn in shock, sheela shrieked n jo tay screamed n jumped! aha n sam yelled! whoo!

HAHAHHA seriously when I read this bit I kept laughing to myself la. (How's that for self-entertainment on a quiet afternoon? :P) Especially the italicized parts! I don't even remember that can?! Hahahahah... and obviously the only way to express my excitement over my presents was 'ahh!' -_-" I gather I was a rather excited 15 year old. Every single sentence ended with an exclamation mark, myWORD.

I loove looking through old stuff. :)

-blessed
5:19 PM

Friday, August 10, 2007

Just came back from lunch with the colleagues. They treated me to Korean food! My very first time eating Korean cuisine. And hmm, I appreciated the meat, the tea, the rice.. but not the lukewarm soup (though it was nice, the temperature of the soup was too low for my liking!) and the funny tasting veggies- I think they're called Kimchi :P I guess it's just me eh?

I'm really touched by their actions- talking to me, including me in their little group, and even today's lunch treat! (Oh oh oh, esp the funny stories. I think I laughed like crazy la :P) They didn't have to do it, but I'm glad they did. It made all that difference in my 3 months here. :D

I bought 18 little cream puffs to share among family and friends! :D I'm a happy girl. :D

My superior: Did anyone ever tell you that if you leave what's the one thing they'll remember about you?
Me: Haha.. No?
My Superior: Your laughter!
Both: HHAHAHAHA! :D

(Apparently they've never heard a laughter quite like mine before... Hmm. :P)

Listening to Go Fish now and all the Christmas songs.. Wouldn't it cool if we could do it too? :) Some things never change... I still love the sound of a true Bass... :)

-blessed
2:06 PM

Today marks the last day that I'll be going to Tanjong Pagar, whoooooo! No more changing MRT lines for me. :D But all the same, I can't believe 3 months has flown by already! I'll miss listening to Gold 90.5FM every day, all the jokes and stories the colleagues share with one another, the laughs, the tissue phenomenon (haha!), doing all the random stuff for them... and the FOOD! Ohmyword that reminds me. I think I should buy the nice little puffs and muffins cos it's the last time I'm gonna be around this area!!!!!!!!!!!!! Will see if I can get some during lunchtime.

Daddy's coming back today! :D Krispy Kremes please, please, please, please, pleeeeeeeeeeeease!!!!

Yesterday was a nice day. Woke up early to have Macs breakfast, then headed down to church to practise for Raja's wedding... And it was fun! Though now I'm not so sure if I remember how to sing the new songs... Errpp. Then we car-pooled and went to J8! We had a nice and looooong chat over lunch. Thank God no one chased us away! :D

Dot's dad came to get her, while Grandpa and I returned to church. And waddaya know, Chris was there when we got back! Then Grandpa taught me how to parallel park without poles. Bah. Cos I was worried about having to park at Shiwei's house later that night! Was banking on my a-ga-ration skill but he insisted, so well... Chris la! You and your accurate intepretation of my looks. "I know that look. That look means I don't really want to do it, but if you ask me a few more times I'll say yes." Arghhh! You and Quan ah.... o.O *speechless*

Then we 3 went to Casuarina for drinks and good chitchat. (Grandpa's treat!) I received great advice there, thanks you two! I didn't ask for it, but haha.... someone with his ability to piece things together just gathered that deep down somewhere, I needed some. :)

Stayed for Gatekeepers until Bliss called and asked where I was! Apparently all of them were waiting for me to get there. :X

Played Bang!, which is a rather cheem version of Saboteur and much slower. Ben was so right when he looked at my face when it came to my turn and remarked, "Amanda's blur already." Haha! Can't we just play Chomp! next time? I'm so tempted to get the game, it's SO MUCH FUN la. Ching, Kane, Charm and I had a blast playing it at Settler's lo. :D Me and my brainless games...

Gave Bliss a lift before heading home, whee! Such joy. Imagine me in a convertible with the top down, blasting music as I drive along the long stretches of highway in COOL weather... Ahhhhhhh.

*POP* Reality check: I'll never be able to afford a convertible, and there're no long stretches of highway (near the ocean) in SG!

Wouldn't I love to go abroad... *dreaming again*

Ok, ok. Apparently needing sleep and lacking work to do makes me very dreamy.. Slept at 2plus making farewell cards for the colleagues, and I got up at 6 plus! I woke up feeling as though I'd only slept 5 minutes. BUT nevermind. I hope they all like their cards and the chocs! :D

Thank God for good company, good friends, good colleagues, and a nice windy morning! His mercies are new every morning. :D :D

Ohhh!! I was telling Grandpa and Dot about this song that I was listening to during work on Wed, and suddenly an idea came! Wouldn't it be superbly nice if the Dads sang this for the Mums on Mother's Day next year??? :D It would be something different, and it's SO APPLICABLE!! I bet the mums would love it. But.... we would have to practise, and hmm. It wouldn't be easy! We would have to get a considerable number willing and able to sing too. Listening to all the different parts now... I never realized all the 'sambal balachan' and 'chilli padi' parts la! If I wasn't in a busy office I would be laughing away. Maybeeeee I should ask Godpa about it eh? Maybe, just maybe. But for now, here're the lyrics to the song! I loooooooove it. I wish our '04 HCchoir batch could sing it again... :) (I wish even more we'd video-ed our item down. Dang!) Priceless. :D


ICE KACHANG by Kopi Kat Klan

Yai Yai Yai...

You always say I'm unromantic
Don't know ways to make a girl tick
I must say you're right about this
For I am truly unpoetic

But I am not dumb
I'm not that stupid
It's just that sometimes brain not working
So I didn't sleep, used my little wit
To write this little bit
(Yai yai yai yai yai yai yai)

You are my ice kachang
In this tropical heat (sambal balachan, sambal balachan)
You are my favourite dessert (ooh la la!)
So inviting so sweet (would you would you, sayang!)
Would you like to bo bo cha cha (cha cha cha cha cha cham bo)
Come along and dance with me (shoo be doo wup, shoo be doo wup)
For you are my love, my tuti fruti
Someone I like to eat

Everytime when we go dating
First the movies then go shopping
You always hint I'm unexciting
It has been so since the beginning

But I am not dumb
I'm not so stupid
It's just that sometimes I'm a blur king
So I didn't eat, used my little wit
To write this little bit
(Yai yai yai yai yai yai yai)

You are my ice kachang
In this tropical heat (chilli padi, chilli padi)
You are my favourite dessert (ooh la la!)
So inviting so sweet (would you would you, sayang!)
Would you like to bo bo cha cha (cha cha cha cha cha cham bo)
Come along and dance with me (shoo be doo wup, shoo be doo wup)
For you are my love, my one atap chee
Someone I like to eat

Each time I look into your eyes
I see some pretty colours (very nice!)
I wouldn't mind paying any price
I kachang over you (my seigo honeydew!)

You are my ice kachang
In this tropical heat (sambal balachan, sambal balachan)
You are my favourite dessert (ooh la la!)
So inviting so sweet (would you would you, sayang!)
Would you like to bo bo cha cha (cha cha cha cha cha cham bo)
Come along and dance with me (shoo be doo wup, shoo be doo wup)
For you are my love, my tuti fruti
Someone I like to eat

ICE KACHANG!

-blessed
9:46 AM

Monday, August 06, 2007

Was just complaining to Ser and Ray yesterday that I never hit below 140s for Minesweeper anymore.

-blessed
4:29 PM

Funniest quote from Pops last Saturday when he was cutting fruits and I was getting some water to drink:

"Wah, the water's going like water!"

I think I stopped pouring for awhile to ponder over what he'd said. It totally made sense, yet it didn't sound like it did. Haha! Told Dee in the car yesterday on the way home and she went crazy laughing, to which my dad defended himself, "But it's true what! The water's going like water, right?"

HAHA. 'nuff said.

I've got nothing to do at work again (nowadays the work comes in either just before lunch or after, and I end up doing OT!! Myword. But the nice colleagues always donate little biscuits/snacks to the feed-the-splat-fund. :D) so I decided to blog after a week's hiatus! Hurr.

Yesterday at church was really quite fun for myself. During the first service, ahem, someone kept dozing off cos the poor person was so tired! We had fun poking that someone to wake up eh. Then a mini-drama occurred cos while trying to open my (full) bottle of water, I accidentally squeezed it while opening it and water came splashing out over my jeans and bible! Sigh, what a klutz. Will nearly burst out laughing when he saw what'd happened, but the nice gentleman opened my bottle for me while I cleaned up! :) Many thanks to Pearlyn for holding the wet pages up and Ser for the tissue :D

Then after service I just slacked around abit, talking to Will and the Elf instead of going upstairs immediately like we always do. Poof came to join us, and Ray too! And we had loads of fun laughing, hohoho! :P :P :P When we'd all cooled down, willelfme (cos I'm siiiimply to lazy to type proper grammer yet I'm willing to type this long sentence in parantheses, I'm weird that way.) went to get breakfast! Had some really yummy porridge before going up for CC. And a little boy's voice has (half)broken!! *reminds me of a certain cousin of Nana's :P* Haha, so cute. Sigh, I really love those kids. God, won't You raise them up and touch them so that all of them will worship You in spirit and in truth?

Joined Ser downstairs to observe the LP kids, and I must say I think I've forgotten what it's like to teach the younger ones... How to get their attention and keep it, how to convey the stories across such that they can understand... Was it just 6 years ago that I was showing the little kids my Smelly Belly toy, bringing special sweets for them to engage them during the lesson, and they all clamoured to sit on my lap each week? How I enjoyed playing with them. In a blink of an eye, they've all grown up right before my eyes... my kindergarten kids have become P5s and P6s, and they'll never crowd around me like they once did. From helping out in LP, I've gone up to UP.. Wow... have I really been in CC for so long? :)

Aww, I'm getting all nostalgic! But I thank God for placing people in my life to point me in the right direction... I don't even remember when I progressed from playing the keys to helping out. But I do remember playing the keyboard for worship... Haha, those starting days were days filled with apprehension and dependence. Every week I would stand and observe how Dot or Laura played, sometimes I'd take the left hand and Laura would take the right, and then I'd fumble and get all mixed up! :P

From playing piano to sitting in on the kindergarten classes; teaching occasionally (how I enjoyed doing all the worksheets! Colouring, shading and painting. Bliss.), then up to UP where I still played the piano. But because there were more youths upstairs, we had a ball of a time sitting behind and talking each week, oops. I remember my very first lesson in UP and I was so nervous! Grandpa even came up and sat behind! (something like Xiaona coming up to watch Ser teach eh!) I remember the first time I worship led. I only led the fast songs, but I remember how I asked the kids to put their barang-barang under their chairs and my Godma told me not to copy their teacher-speak, to make up my own put-your-bags-under-your-chairs-before-worship-starts line (jokingly, of course)... I remember Dot played for me (right?) and I remember how amazed I was when the children sang SO loudly. I can't even recall what songs I sang, only that the children hadn't sung so loud in ages. Praise the Lord! :)

So many things have changed- my roles in CC, even Childrens' Church wasn't named that when I started out... Faces in CC changing, not just the kids, but the teachers and youths too. So much have happened, but the God we serve is the same yesterday, today and forever, amen? :)

I guess I've never really left Children's Church. This would be my 8th year. Going downstairs yesterday felt a little like I'd gone back in time. When I was in nursery, Aunty Emily taught me; now I'm 16 years older and as I sat in her class yesterday and watched her teach, everything felt so familiar. The small band room in the kitchen is now a larger, well-lit one in the new place, the 3 duck stickers on the tiny window of the blue door are no more; now it's a nice brown wooden door. Yet the teacher is the same: her face, her gentle mannerism, her passion for what she teaches, and her love and patience for the children. It strikes me now- I may not always agree with how things are done, but we all have our different ways. Put me in her position and I would probably glare at every kid that wasn't paying attention. The results may not be obvious now, but I'm positive that years down the road, when these children discuss their childhood, they'd remember the kindly face who showed them love each week without fail. :)

I really respect and admire the teachers for their dedication, perseverance and love for the children. They've been in the ministry much longer than I have and they've seen much more, and they're still going. Three cheers for our CC teachers! Haha youth reading this, did I bring you on a trip down memory lane? :D

Oh wow, I drifted so far. Hahaha! Still on the topic of YESTERDAY, I think it was super fruitful. Normally every Sunday I end up running around but yesterday I managed to sit down and talk to people, have fun :D, get updated about Sam's field camp (hoh yeah, I love talking to the cuz!), discuss the cyclethon, have fun with Poof, Dot and Lele over lunch and get a nice long chat with Ser and Ray! :) Aaand I still managed to get everything else done, thank You Lord for letting me have fun in the midst of having many things to do. :)

Thank You Lord, that the choir has finally mastered Mercy Saw Me! I should have known that there had to be a reason for that song to be in the musical. I thought that it was too difficult to conquer, for me to teach and the choir to learn within the amount of time we had, on top of all the other songs. But I'd belittled God. Seriously. When I relied on my own strength, I was tired, stressed, depressed and discouraged. When I gave it ALL up to God, recognizing that I couldn't accomplish it all on my own abilities, when I was so broken and lost and I depended fully on God, that was when He turned the situation around. He sent people to care, encourage, pray for me, and He gave me His joy. Just when I thought that it was impossible to be happy, He helped me to find joy in the smallest of things. Whereas before, we managed to learn only 3 pages very tentatively in 2 plus hours, in the same amount of time that week we managed to learn 1/3 of the song. And the week after we finished the piece. God is amazing, isn't He?

I can't help but praise God because He really has a purpose and plan for everything. He let me try to do it all on my own strength so that I would come to realize that my human ability wasn't enough. All glory and thanks goes to God for the choir being able to finish learning all the songs and sing them well because I'm not a professional conductor, it's my first time (Carolling doesn't count, all I did was snap my fingers! Haha!) having to teach and conduct! Thank God the choir can follow my self-improvised conducting. Phew. And it's no easy task for the choir too, cos we only prac once a week and many of them don't read taugays. :P That's why recently, the tenors always like to end the prac with this proclamation: Mercy Saw Me!! All glory goes to God. :)

I drifted again! Man, this is such a loooong post. I seriously wonder if anyone has the patience to read what I write, hurr!! Yesterday Servers' mtg was quite funny. We discussed the serious stuff, learnt new stuff from the Chair and had fun! I think I provided quite a bit of comic relief, oops. :P Grandpa still doesn't know what I did, does he? And now I owe him 3 treats. o.O Oh wells, I guess that's the price to pay for taking the mickey out of him yesterday :P

I've been drafting this post from 10am till now (3pm) and I still have nothing to do! Waha... hopefully I get to go home on time today! :)

And I just gotta put this up: the lyrics to Mercy Saw Me. Enjoy!

The years had left scars, the scars had left pain
How could He recognize me, I wasn't the same
I knew I should pay and I knew the price
For justice and law demanded my life

But His tender heart heard my desperate cry
And He saw my past through merciful eyes

Beautiful, that's how Mercy saw me
For I was broken and so lost
Mercy looked past all my faults
The justice of God saw what I had done
But Mercy saw me through the Son
Not what I was, but what I could be
That's how Mercy saw me

Whatever you've done, you can't go too far
That His eyes of mercy can't see where you are
He loves you too much to leave you alone
You're flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone

And His heart cries out for your heart today
See yourself through His eyes, then you will say

Beautiful, that's how Mercy saw me
For I was broken and so lost
Mercy looked past all my faults
The justice of God saw what I had done
But Mercy saw me through the Son
Not what I was, but what I could be
That's how Mercy saw me

-blessed
10:23 AM