As u can see, the weather is getting CHILLI! :) NO... Not chilli like hot, i meant chilly like cold. :) and it's SO shiok. :) gonna shop for a long coat/trench coat this weekend. SO looking forward to it. :) been my dream to own a trench.. so this is quite exciting. :)
jus updating u that i found a cool instant messenger for my handphone. it's like msn on my phone. check out the link above... u dun need to install anything to nimbuzz me but this is mostly for jus leaving messages la... so yeh, it's free... jus dun spam my phone with messages unless u totally love me to pieces... even i don't love myself that much so yeh, moderation yo? :)
Chill out! [talkin bout chill, melbourne's hit single digit for weather... and to steal semiotically from macdonalds, i'm lovin' it. :)
God normally doesn't [well thank God for that] audibly speak to you... but He speaks to us through things around us. The Bible, the constant nagging of the Holy Spirit of that sin that u're always doing... or He speaks to us through friends and activities.
Even though pizza thursdays aren't a christian organized thing nor issit Christ focused... i really do hear His voice from fellowship with friends. I really do enjoy these sessions and it makes me remember that God always watches out for His children. I didn't have to pray to Him and specifically ask for friends in Melbourne, He just sent them... and I thank God for friends like these people who make me happy and remind me that God is always around smiling back at me through each and every face. :)
Thot passed thru my mind today... what do I take for granted? my friends? my faith? pizza thursdays? God can take it all away in a snap of a finger. would I still love Him, life and others if He did... I pray He won't coz I do treasure them all very much... for those who came and those who couldn't come... but If He did... what would happen then, what would change?
I love my friends and I thank God for each and every one of them.
Went to Richmond today. It was a good worship session [though i preferred the previous worship leaders]
The speaker today was Pastor Joel Holmes... not bad... i quite liked his message today [shocking?] and I managed to pull some interesting points off it... apparently he's impacted quite a bit of people... it's quite funny coz i can see my frens from Richmond and their msn nicks are all changed with regards to today's sermon. :) So here's a rough outline of what went on. So good to take notes with my phone... then jus copy and paste here. hahaha Psalm 39:4 Lord make me to know mine end and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.
Turn my SOMEDAY into THIS DAY. When we realize how frail we are and how little time we have left, then will we realize this is the moment that God has given us.
2 prayers David used
1. Show me my life's end what would you do for God if you weren't afraid? Fear of failure? Success? Decisions in life is a mixture of fear and faith. 1 John 4:18 - Perfect love casteth out fear
This day. The boy with the fish and loaves, the widow with Two mites. They all did it, this day. What would you do if you didn't fear? Does your list have this: Follow Me
2. Let me know how frail my life is How do you want to arrive in heaven? How precious is life and how much do we use it?
Only You God. All of these things are for only Him. We can be fearless because of God.
Today I woke up with an hour till I had to leave for church. And feeling hungry i decided to make breakfast. I took out the frying pan, heated it up and while waiting, took my mushrooms, cleaned them, sliced them and prepared them for frying. Subsequently, I poured Extra Virgin Olive Oil onto the pan, cracked and egg and sprinkled salt onto my egg.
While waiting for the egg to fry, i turned to my butter and sliced off a small chunk [heh] of it while grabbing the pepper out of the cupboard. Flipped my egg and took out a plate while the other side was frying. Spatula-ed my egg onto my plate and dumped the butter, mushrooms and pepper in.
That resulted in my having an american style breakfast i normally crave for during the weekdays but only have time to do it on weekends such as this.
I scare myself at how 2nd nature it all felt to me now. I know it's not much but maybe... just maybe... i'm doing pretty good here.
Congratulations! The casting results are out, and you have been casted into Daryl's Hip Hop piece. Flare Dance Ensemble’s annual production is something that you should really look forward to. It showcases all the hard work, commitment, and great team work from all of you.
Be prepared to learn heaps from your choreographer. Your commitment is required for each and every piece, so if you think that you are unable to commit to a certain choreographer, please let them know ASAP.
I hope that you are as excited as your choreographer and I, to get to know you and to start practising your routines.
5 minutes later i got this email too.
Hi dancers,
Congratulations! The casting results are out, and you have been casted into Shermaine's Lyrical piece. Flare Dance Ensemble’s annual production is something that you should really look forward to. It showcases all the hard work, commitment, and great team work from all of you.
Be prepared to learn heaps from your choreographer. Your commitment is required for each and every piece, so if you think that you are unable to commit to a certain choreographer, please let them know ASAP.
I hope that you are as excited as your choreographer and I, to get to know you and to start practising your routines.
10 Minutes later i got this email...
Hi dancers,
Congratulations! The casting results are out, and you have been casted into Aileen's Ballet Contemporary piece. Flare Dance Ensemble’s annual production is something that you should really look forward to. It showcases all the hard work, commitment, and great team work from all of you.
Be prepared to learn heaps from your choreographer. Your commitment is required for each and every piece, so if you think that you are unable to commit to a certain choreographer, please let them know ASAP.
I hope that you are as excited as your choreographer and I, to get to know you and to start practising your routines.
Egads... 3 dances and possibly one more... it's not funny anymore.. come on... stop the joke.
Today's Pizza Thursday was interesting. It felt nice warm and cozy again... with the GANG + Hannah... it was like the first pizza night... Matt, Davin, Lois, Phyllis, Joel and a new person... Hannah... so that was kinda fun too. But i guess what impacted me the most was BEFORE pizza night...
Hannah and Lois came over [well lois was already here la coz she had OCF Social] but yeh. wongster was telling us about how she went to do marketing and the sausage man was flirting with her... hahah i take it off a reliable source...
Went to Queen Vic Market to buy veges, and sausages. Wongster: Hi, can I have 3 sausages please? Sausage Seller: Only 3?! You don't have a boyfriend to share them with?? Wongster: hahah.. nah.... Sausage Seller: Do you want a boyfriend?? Wongster: what? haha no no.. Sausage Seller: I'll bring my own sausages..*SMIRK* Wongster: ......RIGHT................ *pays for the sausages and QUICKLY walks away*
Bwhahhha. Lois was saying that she's been hit on by the sausage seller too. jus that apparently it's a diff guy. hahah... so funny. :) poking fun at people shopping.
Then after that, we had a nice little discussion about the end times, rapture and death. Very good coz i love intellectually stimulating conversations... and it's been a while since i've been able to jump thru the bible and go thru some stuff... like yayz... i miss it. :) must talk more about stuff like this. all in due time la
Then we had a nice pizza dinner which was cool coz i ended up paying for chuan and jacque's pre-vet pizza too... wonderful turn of events led me to bringing enuf money for everyone's pizza and chuan being stuck at the cafe with no money. :) cool la.
Yup, gonna try to finish off my essay tml... hopefully everything will be done soon and i can put my mind at ease. :) see how la.
Woot! I finally went on my great ocean road tour. it was SUCH a blast i'm SO glad we all did it so early in the sem and all. :) The group was GREAT and i can't even begin to try to explain what fun it was... but i shall ATTEMPT at bringing u along with me as i try to go thru the day again for the sake of remembrance. :) Complete with pictures! heh
So there was a mess up and apparently they gave us wrong info. Meeting time was 8am but they told us 8.30... so hannah ended up having to be late.. but the i made it a point to ensure that the tour company knew it was their fault and that hannah wasn't late but early actually... so yeh, we set off from college square and got on our 20seater bus... 12 of those seats were our people. MWHAHA. we owned the tour group. :) Here's a pic of us just after setting off...
After a short drive, we stopped by a petrol station along the highway. While the driver pumped up his tank, we snapped a shot... yes.. at a petrol station. how touristy can we get right? :)
Then we continued driving until we hit this small village/town called Anglesea. It's really cute coz it's like a small little self sustaining village. It's got everything... a bank, a supermarket, a bakery, a repair shop, a church, a cafe, shops... so quaint and nice... the people looked really warm too... We saw Anglesea Baptist church congregation having an outdoor Easter service too. so funky!!! on the grass and all by the roadside. so funky... drums and guitar all there too! haha.
We just had a short stop there for toilet break and all then we headed to our lunch destination. It was this place called Apollo Bay which had a great view and nice cheap lunch shops... but we packed our food so we ate our sandwiches on the grassy patch... yes, it is an aussie thing to do. see grass, must sit.. so we've been sitting on a lot of grass recently since coming here. Anyways, it was a nice picnic with a very cool breeze and hot sun. ;) so nice
Finally, after driving so long, we finally were on our way to our first proper destination, the 12 apostles... well there are no longer 12 i hear... apparently there are only 7 left. but we didn't know a single bit of fact coz the tour guide only spoke to us to tell us when to come back to the bus and how long we had at the destinations [yes.... it was THAT BAD... no info sharing, no whatever. sigh... $45 wad to do? :)] So we arrived at the twelve apostles and started seriously jus snapping away... so here are the photos... enjoy...
Yup, after snapping all those pictures [we were only given 1 hour here] we had to leave and go for our next destination... yeh like 1 hour here only? wth! drive for 4 hours, stop here an hour... super diao... so anyways... we went off all happy and snappy... and traveled a very distance to Loch Ard Gorge... the tour guide's from china and when he pronounced it, we all heard it as laura gorge. :S hahah.. tour bus wasn't too happy with the tour guide's lack of professionalism and all that jazz... it was his 2nd tour group apparently, Davin and I had a chat with him.
So we arrived at Loch Ard Groge and we were given like 40 minutes here... it's jus a nice big rock structure with an eroded hole in the center... i think it looks like a big shorts... or boxers. hahaha. :) Enjoy the pics.
Then we drove on to London Bridge which is like this big long structure that has fallen down... and no, it's not the "london bridge is falling down" song... that's actually about a bridge in london... but jus so happens that this is called london bridge too. interesting no? :) Supposed to have some myth-story about some couple that met here... but yeh, tour guide wasn't sure so his mumbling wasn't even understandable. :S hahah...
Yup, after that we just took some nice stylish shots and some jump shots... then we headed back.. bought dinner on the way [fish n chips] at a pitstop and dao-bao-ed to my place to eat... Lois and Hannah came over to eat before i sent them home... it was quite stress coz it was late and we 'partied' a bit after dinner with our Zion BP chord book and a guitar. hahaha... then when i dropped lois home, there were no more trams in operation anymore... but i decided to jus try and run back to the tram stop [which is like 2 streets down ok!] and lo and behold, there it was... shining in all it's glory, the last tram. i bolted towards it and caught it. i was so glad coz the walk back is long... it's ok la, can surely walk... but i was tired like anything... so yeh, the tram was a God send... really. :)
Yup so... more pictures can be found on my facebook. i advise u go check my facebook coz I did captions there. :) but yeh, to take us home, here's some stylish pics we took. :) I enjoy myself so much and am SO glad we did it. :) I love the last pic of wongster and myself... i think it's the best pic of the day [not counting the scenery shots of rocks] coz it's so comfortable, unposed and natural. :) yayz phyllis. power photographer. :) nice timing.
Ladies and Gentlemen, for your entertainment... Joel Melbourne Production Proudly Presents, for one night only, Hannah and Lois the mad crazy bus dancers!!!! *p.s. check out the rest of the people in the bus... compared to the 2 of them... Thus i conclude, listening to iPod makes u... yeh... like THAT...*
Today we planned on having a very spontaneous Good Friday.
First of course, we went to church for Good Friday service. it was better than i thot coz the OCFers hadn't left for Belgrave Heights yet.. so some of them were still around church. The sermon was good but like i told my fren ivan, i felt it was more directed towards christians rather than a gospel thingy for non christians. i felt that it lacked the application of 'what's this and that mean to me as a nonchristian'... it was more of a reflective sermon for us christians about what Christ's death means to us...
The main crux of the whole sermon was that it was all paradoxical... The speaker [angmoh called Jeff] talked about how Christ died on the cross. About how the soldiers who were at the foot of the cross were holding incriminating evidence. They were stained with Christ's blood, his garments were in their hands and they were making remarks and insults about Christ right there and then within earshot of God... When Christ died and the earth shoke, and the veil tore and the rocks split and the graves gave up their contents, then did those soldiers realize that this truly was the Son of God. Imagine that, you're there at the foot of the cross, the blood stained your hands and your words stained your mouth... and here was the Son of God, whom u put to death... imagine if the wrath of God poured out there and then... you were in the worst place to be in the whole universe, doing the worst things ever... there u were, standing there with stained hands and incriminating evidence. what would be your justification?
Now the paradox. the worst place to be in at that point in time is actually the best place to be in. Christ's blood staining their hands is the same bloog that protects them from the wrath of God.... amazing... and if ANYONE of us ever think we're too wretched, too sinful for God to forgive us, who are we compared to those at the foot of the cross there and then. if God didn't smite them? What better us?
After church a few of us decided last nite to have a very spontaneous outing today. The plan? Bring camera, meet at Federation Square after church and be ready to have some fun. So we walked from church to fed sq [which is super far away but didn't feel like it] and we went to the visitor's desk. I went up and told the lady,
"Hi, good day to you. We're a bunch of teenagers with a whole day with nothing to do and a low budget. What would you advise?"
Haha... so we did do a little research while waiting for our number to be called so i asked her about the Secret Gardens walk tour and it's a self tour.. so it shows u where to walk and what to look out for... and we decided to go walk that... so we [Davin, Lois, Jacque, headed off to Graffiti lane to see some real nice graffiti and then went to walk our tour.
we took so many photos it was quite crazy... on the way, we saw this huge floral clock... davin describes it as "floral clock... a clock made with flowers" :) but yeh, that was nice.. and we saw a lot of sculptures along the way too... then we saw this grass patch that was full of dried fallen leaves... and the leaves were heart shaped. so i was like why not we make a heart shape with a few of these leaves. and in the end, we made a HUGE outline of a heart with all the leaves on the floor. :)
It was one of the best parts of the day. photo whored inside the heart after that. ahha really.. woots! :) then we walked to the shrine of rememberance where they honour the war veterans of Australia... it was a very nice huge place with great photo ops... :) it was the highlight of the whole walk la...
so yeh, we took lots of photos there including a multitude of jump shots.... coz my camera has self timer and multishot so we set 10 seconds timer, set 12 multishot and jus jumped and jumped and jumped. it was so hilarious. jump jump laugh jump jump laugh... hahaha :) haiz. loved it. :) people were staring at us thinking we're crazy. haha
Then we went to roll on the grass. roll? yeh it was a slope down and we decided, let's roll down it. hahah okok jus a short way and davin didn't wanna roll. :( but the rest of us did. hahah whee! here's a video.
Yeh, then we went back to city area for dinner. bought subway and sat on the grass outside the state library [it's an aussie thing.. see grass must sit] and ate our dinner. :)
Hohoh... it was SO good. :) Tonite was the highlight of my week and it didn't disappoint. :) After a normal day in sch [with free sausage lunch courtesy of student union thru jacque] i came home and did some work. Then after that i got ready to meet up with Wongster and Kenrick for dinner and comedy festival. Lois and Matt tagged along for dinner and after we had our delicious meal at Mekong [love it to bits] we walked down Swanston to try to find our mysterious venue... after turning into some wrong roads here and there, we finally stumbled upon the place we were headed.
We dilly-dallied around the outside coz we were still early and snapped some photos. then guess wad... Mike Milmot walks up to the entrance and jus stands there smoking and chatting with the door men.. and kenrick was like That's him! that's mike, the guy we're coming here for! and i was like oh oh oh! let's snap a photo!
Thus the photo. :) The comic of the night with a lovely wongster and tanster flanking him on both sides. He was a real nice chap to talk to and have a short pre-show chat up. :) Then we went in and got our seats after hanging around the bar for a while. 2nd row from the front! eeps! haha but it was all good coz it wasn't front row. no one likes front row for comics... coz they always pick on the front row... and thruout the whole show, he kept focusing on the front row from time to time. scary stuff. :)
But all that said and done, he was HILARIOUS. i was SERIOUSLY laughing my head off at his jokes. crude, rude, adult, dirty at some points but OH SO entertaining and i was telling wongster that i'm SO glad we got to watch him and not some safe quiet funny comic coz there's no point in coming all the way here to melb and not getting exposed to alot of things that spore shields u from. we get entertained but like wongster said, that doesn't mean we need to carry on his act in our own lives and speech... hahaha. so it was real fun and kenrick was laughing so hard next to me too... wongster was in the zone la. bet her cheeks were all achy... kenrick and i took turns jus leaning over in our seats from laughing and it was really a great night... the jokes were funny as hell and the way he delivered it, classic! :)
Yup... now looking forward to Flare Dance casting tml, thursday night potluck gathering, Good friday service and GREAT OCEAN ROAD TOUR ON EASTER!!!! :) bring.. it... ON, my finger's already on the shutter! :)
Quote of the day: 'Raccoons are just huge rats dressed as robbers' - Mike Wilmot
From left: Vanessa, Michelle, Jane, Davin, Phyllis, Joel, Chuan, Hannah, Lois
