Doh-Tah, holy smoke

Oh goodness. take a listen/watch at this... it's SU-PAH far-knee... haha i'm looping it jus to hear it over and over again.... hahah even now as i type this entry. :)

credits to A.Pua for blogging the vid on her blog. ahaha supah farknee. :) enjoy.
holy smoke.... HAHAHAHA
p.s. i will be blogging bout my past 2 days.. but later la. i'll blog from work. HAHA. :)

Should I?

---

Pa won't like it
A farm boy accidentally overturned his wagonload of corn. The farmer who lived nearby heard the noise and yelled over to the boy, "Hey Willis, forget your troubles. Come in and visit with us. I'll help you get the wagon up later."
"That's mighty nice of you," Willis answered, "but I don't think Pa would like me to."
"Aw come on boy," the farmer insisted.
"Well okay," the boy finally agreed, and added, "but Pa won't like it."
After a hearty dinner, Willis thanked his host. "I feel a lot better now, but I know Pa is going to be real upset."
"Don't be foolish!" the neighbor said with a smile. "By the way, where is he?"
"Under the wagon."

Watch-a-holic

So maybe i like watches. So sue me. :)

I WAS using only one for a long time. :)

p.s. go try gothere. it's a wonderful tool now that streetdirectory.com is gone. :) i'm highly impressed by gothere. so useful. :)

Behind the Scenes by Fancesca Battistelli

P.s. Sorry this is only 30-seconds long.... it's to make sure people dun steal this great song off the net.
This is a wonderful song. I've been listening to this new artist... she's 20. goodness.. but she's a Christian singer and her songs are really nice easy listening, plus... them being Christian help me remember some stuff that I often forget. I recommend this album to anyone... and if u want a preview or the whole album, let me know. u can bring your thumbdrive and i'll pass it to you...

enuf bout that, when i was listening to the album, this song really spoke to me. It still rings very true... It's like those songs that u find that's specifically written about you. This song reminded me that although you put yourself in the limelight, you lead, you stand in front and be the figure that people know and associate with 'good leadership and Godliness', i'm just as sinful [if not more] than any one around. No one really knows my sin except me and God and this song is just a reminder to me that putting yourself in the forefront doesn't make you any more Godly than anyone else, it doesn't excuse your sin and more importantly, it doesn't erase anything you've done. Every one sins, myself included, but as leaders, do people expect us to be superhuman? Coz they're not.

It's my prayer that as we listen to this song and ponder, may we strive to be perfect, to be faultless so that no man can question your motives, source of strength and trust. God is God, we are man, but that doesn't excuse us from all the sin in our life, no matter what 'position' we may hold in this human life. We are all equal sinful sheep.

Lyrics:
You may think
I’m just fine
How could anything
Ever be out of line?

I take my time
To set the stage
To make sure everything
Is all in place

Even though I’ve got the lines rehearsed
A picture only paints a thousand words

(Chorus)
Things aren’t always what they seem
You’re only seeing part of me
There’s more than you could ever know
Behind the scenes
I’m incomplete and I’m undone
But I suppose like everyone
There’s so much more that’s going on
Behind the scenes

Sometimes I can’t see
Anything
Through the dark
Surrounding me
And at times I’m unsure
About the ground
Beneath my feet
If it’s safe and sound

When it’s hard to find hope in the unseen
I have peace in knowing it will find me

(Chorus)

You may think I’m just fine
How could anything ever be out of line?

Debz and Airy are back!

So here i am sitting in coffee bean at the airport... it's 12.32am. an hour since debz and airy's flight was supposed to land. I actually was supposed to have almost an hour of free time to myself and NISS before my parent's flight comes... but here i am, left with less than half an hour before i gotta run off to budget terminal. :S haha but i guess it's better than nothing and with the free time i have coz of ORD!!!! i can do NISS another day la. :) just gotta wake up earlier... say... 8am? grinz.

okok so Nick has been complaining i'm being proud about my ORD and being so free.. but seriously... i'm supposed to be. i will NOT hide the fact that i'm super happy that i'm no longer an NSF and i'm so glad i dun need to go work anymore... i'm sorry nick, as they say in the army... suck thumb... haha but yeh, i'll gloat LESS when i'm in your presence. hahha.. like u said jus now la, u dun understand how i feel about ORD coz you've not gone thru what i have... and likewise, you will... so when yours comes, you'll understand what ORD means...

But with that said and done, this entry isn't bout ORD coz that was the last entry... this entry is more about the 2 groups of people who are coming back tonite...
Debz and Airy - 2 people i really miss quite a bit. and the absence makes the heart grow fonder... totally.. haha... it feels like forever since i was able to fellowship properly with them so i'm immensely glad that they're back. As much as i tried to, i couldn't hide the fact that my heart jumped for joy when i saw them walk thru those pearly gates of... oh wait... no no i meant the glassy doors of the airport arrival hall. hahaha. :) no but seriously, i think both of them represent sumthing in my life that i've lacked since quite a while ago so them being back would hopefully help me to get those areas of my life back on track.

For my parents who are touching down in T minus 23minutes... The week that they have been gone has put me thru some thinking. as much as i loved the liberation of them gone, there were SO many times that the thot of 'what if' crossed my mind. esp with my sister gone to chicago... i kept wondering... it's fun... it's great... but what if this was permanent. what if sumthing happened and i'm left alone in this world without a family.. would doing loads of laundry still be exciting? buying chicken rice and da bao-ing home to eat in front of the TV still be a novelty? would having extra cars in the driveway make sense? It scared me to think la. what would i do without them...
Yeh, and it also made me evaluate whether i can take care of myself all alone... whether my income would run out and how then? work and survive alone? so yeh, as much as i loved the freedom this week brought me, it also helped me think thru some important life questions... and of course, i still conclude [even before they left] that i still treasure them and need them so much in my life. My dad took the house keys and with it, the mailbox key. so i haven't been able to check snail mail in a week.. how much are we talkin bout? i have NO idea... lolz.

and the time is 12.45... so i should go... but jus to prove that i was here in the airport blogging... here are random dumb pictures!

ORD LOH!

It's finally here. It's finally passed and I'm finally free....

After waiting 2 long years, I'm finally out of the army. I guess it's safe to say that I've learned much from the 2 years in the army. I've learnt soft skills like how to deal with people, how to make decisions for the team, how to solve problems based on the situations in front of me. I've even learnt hard skills like how to repair vehicles, how to fire a rifle, how to throw a grenade and how to follow commands and march like, no, as a soldier.
To say that the past 2 years were a complete waste of time would be really insensitive and selfish. Coz as much as I'd like to, i have to say that the Army has helped me grow into a more mature, more decisive and less flippant person. The leadership there may not have been the best, the worst actually, but that only showed me how to work under and with tough management whom i might not agree with.

so to sum it all off, the past 2 years are all over and i'm glad i've finally got my freedom back. now... we'll see what awaits.

ORD LOH!

1 Day to ORD

Do I even need to say anything? :)

Rambles from Subway

Went down to the Creative store today at Marina Square... i'm actually in marina sq now. haha but whatever... had a look at the Zen X-Fi... it's sweet seriously... the look is nice, the size is to die for and the screen, wow... so sharp, clear and crazily vibrant... when i was browsing the pictures, it was like i was watching a tv or sumthing. kudos to Creative on that.

however, i really didn't see the need to upgrade to this considering how i already have a good working player which can do everything this one can [music, video, pictures] and it has the same screen size... yup... so i shall jus bite the bullet and wait for a better player to come up... aybe one that can surf the web and send emails. :) yup. thankfully i didn't jus buy it on impulse or sumthing... it does look sweet though so if i didn't have an already working-fine mp3 player from creative, i'd seriously have put some thot and possibly cash into it. :)

that aside, i'm glad that thingsa re pretty smooth sailing now. NISS is keeping me in touch with God. Thank God for this solid CE Bible Study Program in the youths and i pray that we'll all benefit 110% from it to learn more about God and to learn God. we can't jus know ABOUT God. we must know God.

a good friend's grandma just passed away. sigh. funerals always make me a bit sad. esp when i get the answer 'no' when i ask if they were a believer... u really are accountable to the time u have here and how many people u share Christ to. it's really sad to see them leave coz u know wad's awaiting isn't heaven. sigh... sorry to bring this down and make the mood low, but this truly is the essence of my feelings now. the sense of despair that there's nothing left we CAN do...

on other news, been receiving quite a lot of bad news recently too. personal life, friends, family... lots of things aren't going the way we planned. but i guess we still have time to affect and effect changes... just pray that with the time we have, we can use it for God... thankfully the Bible is keeping me and us all strong... stronger than we could ever be without Him.

Zen X-Fi... mine please?

OH MY GOODNESS...

guess what news i got in the email today... a new Zen's out... and by golly, she's a smoking hot-ness...

Zen X-Fi


go.. take.. a... look... GAHHH i want. i want i want i want!!!!
HELP ME.. eeps. *rolls around in uncontrollable materialistic desire*

7 days to ORD

oh my gosh. I opened my firefox web browser just now and look at what greeted me...



Woo! that's a week away. how weird is that. never thot it would be so close. ORD is like within the next week manz.. like totally. haha all i need now is to hear from my company that we've been given the next week OFF. ahaha but i dun think that'll happen. never mind. ahah.. at least i'll be done with it all in a week's time. wonderful news.

today I spent time with 2 good frens over the period of the day that reminded me that friends are people u normally take for granted. It takes special effort to keep a frenship going and though it looks easy sumtimes, i think it takes 2 hands to clap for a frenship to work. so here are my 2thots that came from it..

negative
when the other hand doesn't clap and doesn't seem to think a frenship is worth keeping, or says it only and does a different thing. then maybe u shouldn't waste time on it anymore. Maybe u should invest your time into people who really care and bother. To those people, you mean sumthing and therefore, these are the people who should mean sumthing to u rather than those who are just too busy, or always have a convenient excuse to give, or just plain ignorant to your efforts.

positive
To those who are your friends, you share with, you know that when u go, they'll miss you and want to meet up again. It could be just to catch up over morning breakfast, to update you on their life, to hear more about yours, to jus call u to tell u that they've bought a new phone which sounds like yours or just to enjoy a movie together with nothing planned later except chilling and sharing of lives. there, these are the people who you know can echo the phrase ,"it doesn't really matter what we do, it's good coz the time is spent with you."

Now back to the army. i think it zaps alot of our life away from us, we turn into vulgar, rude, mindless animals that can snap at anyone with a string of dialect so cohesively put together you'd only guess it's coz of the frequent use of it. But when we get out of here, every father's/mother's son should be a mature man, ready to face the challenges put to him in the near future and beyond.
Do I feel that? Well, as much as i'd love to slam the army and the way it's run, i think i have to say that yes, it has changed me. maybe not physically and spiritually [thank God for that] but it's helped me see a lot and when u see things, u learn from them, you grow and you understand that maturity should therefore stop u from making other mistakes in the past.

So yeh, with 7 days to go, i better start applying into the CCC.... what you don't know? Well, it's the Civillian Conversion Course duh... hahhaa... :)

7days to ORD!!!

11 days to ORD

my goodness. i'm a DAY away from being 10 days to ORD... can't believe it's actually happening. i understand it'll be anti climax and the first day of ORD will be super like 'what am i going to do now' kinda thing... sumthing like today. but still, i can't wait to take off the green on me.

why bother

Sometimes, i wonder, why bother? There are loads of times when i think there isn't a reason why we should carry on trying. trying to better the situation, trying to get something out of it.

and then i realize, i should just be content with what i already have and actually, anything more than this would just make things complicated. so just bugger off, let people live their lives and i just be accountable for my own life.

i mean, why bother when it takes so much effort to get the other hand to clap. everything's fine now, why change things.

why bother?

w760i MINE!

So, i finally bought myself my ORD gift... the gift i've been waiting for for the past 2 years... and specifically this particular gift for a few months ago... Today, i ran out of the house [fully using my one day of leave] to go and buy myself... the much coveted ....

w760i

woo! i'm the proud owner of this smashin phone. whee! haha okok it's not THAT great a phone, but seriously compared to the one i have now, it's amazingly great. ahha okok, so the samsung is SO lousy la... no camera, no walkman, no loads of simple functions [do u know that old samsung phone can't ring and vibrate at the same time, they ring ring ring then when the melody is over, it vibrates... wow, how did they approve manufacturing of that?!?!]... so yeh, the new phone i have is really a treat for myself. :)

now, at least i can enjoy messaging without having to worry if the button i pressed was really indeed pressed coz the samsung i have is really not working anymore [buttons]... so yeh, pretty glad that i've bought myself a new phone. now, i just have to transfer the stuff into the new phone and we're all set to start using proper phone functions again. :) here's a pic of the proud owner and his old and new phone. please ignore the background, i'm in simei eastpoint. :P

and just the phone alone...

Clearance Forms

Just came back from Jurong Camp. I'm on leave today but because some big shots aren't around for the next two weeks, I had to go down to camp today to get them to sign the form. It was quite cool actually, walking around in Civilian... everyone there kept asking me, "oh joel! you ORDing ah?" and it was quite nice to know that all the big shots kinda knew who i was and was kinda sad to see me go. Funny though coz the thot 'i would have been so much happier working under you' came up time and time again as i chatted with some of the officers there. Not that work life is TOTALLY crappy in my unit, i just felt that i'd prob have a much enjoyable time under those officers.

Nonetheless, clearance form is a direct symbol of how little time u have left and i would always envy those ORD personnel who were walkin around the workshop getting people to sign their forms. but here i am no, 15 days away from ORD... doing exactly that. heh...

it's funny coz the 2 years seems to have flown by really fast.. but when i think back and think of the day of my enlistment, wow... it feels like forever since then. One thing to note, Rachel and Dinesh were still in spore when i left for the Army and matt was still a 2LT. lolz. haha.. i've got pictures of my enlistment.. but i think i'll save it for my ORD post. :P in 15 days time. whee! hahha

I really thank God for a lot of things in the army. take for example now, the situation in my company isn't really good... lots of people not too happy and morale is generally low la... hard to explain without sounding bitter and angry [coz i'm not] but it's really hard to find joy working... and there's nothing the management is doing about it. there are times that i'm jus SO so so glad that i'm leaving.. but then i think of my juniors and what nonsense they'll still have to go thru when we've left.. pity them. But i hope that things will change la. we never know, things jus might change for the better. But seriously, there are loads of times i can hold myself back from saying sumthing bitter or angry because of the peace God gives me. Things aren't good yes, but complaining about it isn't going to solve anything. So i just pray for strength and wisdom on how to deal with decisions and God always comes thru for me.

Yup, so 15 days away from ORD and i've just went to buy my ORD present to myself. haha... but you prob have already read about it since this entry appears AFTER the most recent one. so yeh, yayz. haha

ThankGod for life.

Remembering Friends

Just penning down some thoughts because i haven't been doing that in a long time and also coz things have made me think of certain issues. I recently picked up a journal i used to have a long time [2 years] ago and reading what i wrote, i chuckled at my sillyness about some stuff and reflected on other.

What struck me the most actually was how much i treasured a friendship i had back then. I wrote how much i thanked God for it and how it has made me closer to God and stuff... and sad to say, i barely have friendships THAT significant nowadays let alone friendships that so obviously point me to God. maybe it's coz of who i am now and how much i've changed [if i have] or maybe it's jus coz i'm more jaded with life and friends. I dunch really know but i guess things do look they're going on an uphill climb. from here on forth, i see a road that's kinda set before me that will take effort and dedication, but i plan on taking that route up because it doesn't make sense to stay here in the valley. But i know that initiative is everything and initiative in the right friendships. More so than not, i dun seek God first in a friendship [in the sense that it isn't the top priority when i decide on how to spend my time with a friend]... but i pray that God will soften my heart and let me hear Him when He speaks to me. I know these all sound random and haphazard but i pray that God will focus my thots by blogging.

Friends change, friends leave, friends come back. i'm just glad that God doesn't and that friends who point me to God don't leave God coz if they do, i dun really know how i'd get back there. To summarize it all, i'm glad that accountability is coming back and trust and honesty will be closer to home than it was before. Glad that once it's come back to me and once it's all back to normal, i'll continue to live a live accountable to a fren and more importantly, God. May we FOCUS on being who we are in this world with the help of those around us.

And a friend's a friend forever, if the Lord the lord of them.
And a friend will not say never coz the welcome never ends.
Though it's hard to let you go, in the Father's hands we know.
That a lifetime's not too long, to live as friends.

LR thots

LR was great. as always. apart from some issues that were seriously bugging me bad, i think it's jus Satan's way of putting distractions in my mind so that i couldn't/wouldn't focus on God and the work He's doing in Shalom. But thank God that He can always turn a bad thing into something blessed for His purpose... so in the end, everything was ok and i was able to change my outlook of things and make sure LR worked for me and the rest of the exco. i just wanted the exco to be able to spend time together as an exco and bond so that we could face problems next time with one mind and one idea.

I changed my personality profile. shocking enuf, i'm no longer a high I... but i think i should do the PROPER test la. the one we did was super not enuf and totally... DUH... it's like... today i feel like being a D therefore i shall ans all the column 1 answers with a high rating... duhz... lame la. but i tried my best to answer it properly and now i'm a S-I... which is interesting coz ju and cheryl seemed to think i'm a higher C than a year ago. i agree... and i think i attribute that change of character to 3 things... Being Chair last time, being secretary now and growing old. yes... growing old... maturity sumtimes saps some I-ness away from you... but like i told them, i want to be a high S instead of I... why? i'm not too sure. guess i'm jus kinda tired of being labelled highly enthusiastic and ignorant to other things around me. it's time to pass on the flame and let others have a shot at being the crazy limelight one. i'm more quiet now and though there are many times, when the situation calls for, i can still invoke my high I-ness and shamelessly do something, i think it's more of a character quality i can call up instead of it being me. :) so it's like a skill more than a character now. not sure.

other than that, as of today.. i've for 27 more days in the army. i'm really looking forward to gettin out coz i guess i'm a bit jaded and sick of the life there. there's been lots happening at my camp and they've really strained a lot of the relationships of the men and the leaders and stuff. and i jus want to leave it all coz it's really taking a lot of my time, emotions and friendships away from me. good news is, the workload of the workshop is gonna hit a high period soon so we're going to be working our butts off... jus before i ord... so yeh, i have no idea how to clear the remaining measley 4.5days of off and leave before i ord. yup, it's that sad. haiz. whatever rite? 27 more days. jus bite the bullet rui... ok, not literally coz that could get me charged.
*p.s. i have NO idea how people can go 2 and a half years here. dun even talk bout signing on.*

yup. so my life's been like that la. nothing much happening i guess. jus wondering how things will change in a year's time. quite a huge change for me.. but we'll see.

yup, i got much to do actually... so blogging is really not sumthing i should be doing now. but i know it's been forever since i did. so here's the much anticipated [yeh rite] post... oh... i bought a new pair of pumas... first ever. :) ducati can. haha check it out.



have a good weekend peeps!

Off to LR! Leader's Retreat

Hey peeps... i'm off to a 3 day in depth focus on God's Word and the YF. :) Yup! It's our annual YF Leader's Retreat once again. I can't say how much i'm looking forward to this camp too. guess it's a bit coz of how i need to discipline myself and these camps normally do the job... and of course coz it's for the youth too la. the reason we plan things, the people we reach out to and the things we do are for the youths. :)

So keep us in prayer as we brainstorm activities and the focus for the next YF year!
Benjamin, Zhi Han, Rui, Cheryl, Julia, Arthur, Jamie, Michelle.

Glory to God above!

Reflections on Church Camp 2008

Glad that i'm all back safe and sound from church camp. this is surely one church camp i'll remember for a long time. not so much because of the people and the activities we did in camp but more coz of the planning of the camp and the things i learnt in the camp.

First of all, i must say that this year has been ultra tiring and very often quite stressful. I thought that publicity wouldn't be so busy during camp itself but since everyone was pretty busy, i took over roles that really took up my time. i'm not complaining here, i'm jus recollecting the experiences in camp. Yeh so throughout the camp i was running here and there making things happen seaminglessly. :) it was pretty stressful seriously... making sure that everything ran according to schedule and stuff.. really didn't have free time at all except the last day... but then again, that was only an hour coz the rest was taken up. Nonetheless, i still managed to find time to go to the gym twice. YAYZ. hmm i should go to my home gym too la. but no time now. shucks. stupid random thot. anyhoo... thank God that everything went well coz it wasn't easy shuttling from projector to guitar to zen [to record messages] to stage for HOOKs and SKITs and back to my seat to copy notes for the workshop after the sermon. :)

And then the other issue bout this year's church camp that i'll remember isn't really a sweet memory. it's more of a confirmation to me. to not be so distracted by the people around me. Focusing on God [even in church camp] can be so hard. So often, i confess, i get lost thinking what others might think or what others might wanna do before i ask what God wants me to do or what God thinks [if He does even need to think] at that point of time. Sometimes bad thoughts creep into my head and then my thots gets turned from God to that bad thot... and it's not good coz it's fruitless thinking. There are always easier things to do than to worry bout what my brain tells me but i just can't help it sometimes, i'm human and humans fail and fall.
Just need to be more focused on the right things and not be distracted on the way.

Glad that quite a number of youth could make it for church camp. Their presence really did play a big part in the ultimate enjoyment of camp. Tiang was a fabulous roommate. ass. locked me out on the last day coz he was such a log sleeping away while i was furiously spamming the doorbell outside for 20 minutes. ahha... haiz. what to do? he was tired, can't blame him totally.

So yeh, here i am, back to reality. Back from the retreat with God and His people. everyone wishes it could last longer but God calls us to a short retreat and thus, we should all enjoy how much time we've been given. Just that sometimes when we're thrown back into this world, the distractions get so much louder than His small voice. Just hope that i can keep trusting God and focusing on Him. don't wanna lose it.

p.s. photos from church camp will be up shortly.

LEADER'S RETREAT IN 2 WEEKS!!! WOOTZ!

At Church Camp 2008

So, as I hoped, there's internet here and i planned to blog one day during the camp. At least to jus say that i've blogged from malaysia, saujana... so here's the post... finally have some spect of free time... waiting for e.kang to come down to my room now so we can go practice for tonite... putting up a skit that apparently a lot of people like [thank God for that] and so we're working on expanding it all for the sake of humiliation, shamefulness and a good time.... of course those are all on our part, all they do is laugh. :)

But church camp has been a blast... really... it's been fun and tiring all at the same time and like always, i never want it to end. just glad that i'm able to enjoy myself and learn more bout God and the Scripture. I really do wish i could spend more time with certain people and less time in debrief meetings are rehearsals for some skit like the one i'll have real soon... but you know, someone's gotta do it. :)

so yeh, i think i have learnt quite a bit from the camp, from running it and seeing how it's run in the background. We all know how camps are run but when we run a christian camp for our home church, there are lots of things we need to be sensitive about, and we sometimes really see the bad side of people... just reminds me that Man can fail us or disappoint us but God never.

Hoped that during this church camp i wouldn't be too distracted. oki gotta go. ciaoz!

Off to church camp!

Hey hey hey! guess who's finally getting a break from army life and everything else singapore related? Let me give u a hint...

ME!

mwhaha! yuppers. i'll be out of your life and uncontactable by phone from the 2nd to the 6th of june. I hear there's internet so i'll prob still be online when i can... and if there's really sumthing SUPER urgent, email me... but please, allow me to run away from you for just ONE week... please? haha..

yup! i can't wait to go tomolo.. been dying for church camp since well... since the last one ended i suppose. haha... yayz. it's been a year of waiting and a year since HANsome and RUIdiant was formed. amazing huh? but well, time flies... so yup, jus posting to say i'm not around. don't call me.

Take care yo!