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I’m revisiting wordpress for fun!

Okay luh, here’s the reason why I’m blogging (which is actually quite stupid but whatever). Yesterday I had some amazing FIT of excitement and enthusiasm to be responsible & hardworking.I wrote down all my homework on a piece of paper, put checkboxes next to each homework, and then did the homework one by one (with sinfonia in between). I did it and did it and did it, taking some breaks in between, and btw breaks = facebook msn facebook msn facebook facebook facebook msn msn facebook msn msn… … heh.

Then when it got to night time, I made the amazing discovery that I HAD FINISHED LIKE ALL MY HOMEWORK omg! FOR ONCE MANNNN. Then I was like OMG OMG OMG for a few minutes in disbelief when I saw my homework checklist was 100% TICKED. “Yay, tmr can relax play and play some more!”

It’s Sunday afternoon after church. I got home – usually the first thing I’ll do is bathe then do homework. Then after bathing, I realized: NO HOMEWORK (!?!?!?!??!?!?!). I went to facebook and opened MSN and then got bored after about 15 minutes. Then I started feeling panicky (for some strange reason)… like, there was nothing to DO. The time was passing and passing and passing and I wasn’t DOING any homework/work -.-

I went downstairs to practise my violin (new piece, Bach’s partita, the Gavotte, ‘coz the Loure is already somewhat acceptable). This lasted for maybe an hour. Snacked, then came back up to my room, looked at facebook/msn again… and got bored after 10 minutes.

Hence I’m left with absolutely nothing to do (or rather, no homework to do) so here I am talking to myself… zzz. But life goes on…

It’s been a month since school started – first week of school was utterly horrible. I felt so tired and so of course a lot of capslock came out on facebook, resulting in a lot of nonsensical comments which made me laugh like crazy and hence feel better yay! But I still felt rly stressed for the first few weeks. Now it’s not that bad.

I feel like church has become so farrrr away because during the hols, I was going to church quite often, but now it’s just once a week I miss church people (who have also started sch and hence don’t have much time to go facebook-ing).

We have a new pastor (Pastor Gideon Choi) who is really cool and he has a cool wife and a cool daughter too. His daughter, PEACE CHOI, (:D:D:D:D) is gonna help out in the youth, yay! I’ve always wondered why the chinese youths have gingin + shawn, the MM youths had pastor ff, and we dun even have any youth workers/pastors at all!!! But delia of course is awesome!! And now we have PEACE too! Yay! I have new SS teachers too! Melissa Deng and Uncle Sam thank God for them!

Today’s sermon was interesting (I love the guy’s accent so much!!! haha I’m a sucker for those accents which are Singaporean but with like a 30% british element). I didn’t really agree with what he was saying though. He stated that how one can be righteous is by obeying the 10 commandements, obeying great commission, being compassionate. But to me, no man can ever perform a fully 100% righteous act/live righteous lives, and what it means “to be righteous before God” is simply that Jesus’ blood has made us righteous. Keywords are “BEFORE GOD” thus without God, no righteousness. Haha maybe the speaker didn’t mean it that way luh, but it was quite misleading for me.

Today was worship & music ministry installation… haha I really hate formal pants, though they DO make my legs look freakishly long (and don’t say “but they ARE freakishly long” ‘coz THEY’RE NOT THAT LONG). I specifically told the worship roster planner to schedule me no more than once a month, in view of the GCE O LEVELS (ahhhhh) that I have to study for, but I was STILL scheduled more than requested!!!!! What’s this man!!! Of course my parents aren’t very happy but I’ve promised to take a break from the ministry from July til O levels end. How sad…

Oh and it wasn’t til last week that I realised that I ONLY HAVE 3 MONTHS LEFT TO COVER THE ENTIRE O LEVEL SYLLABUS TO BE READY FOR MID-YEAR EXAMS!!! Feb March and April… if only I started in January!!! I did a calendar and filled in what subjects + chapters/topics I’m gonna cover every single day. Physics has 27 chapters… -.- 9 chapters per month!??!!? Utterly impossible.

Wahaha… this post has a lot of exclamation marks, doesn’t it?

Last Blog Post ):

This blog was intended for the holidays, and since holidays are over, I suppose this has to be my last entry.

I went for the Watchnight Service at church last night to countdown to midnight. When everyone was counting “10 9 8 7… …” I was buring my face in my hands and dreading the moment, and I nearly cried after zero -.- Never in my 15 years of life did I imagine that I could ever be a Secondary 4 student. When I was in Primary One, I wanted SO MUCH to be a grand, tall and mature Secondary 4 student. Now I desperately want to go back to being a kid again.

I don’t know what my resolutions are this year, maybe I have none. But I hope that::

1. I won’t get too stressed out for O Levels (but stressed enough to get me studying my butt off)

2. I won’t be bald by the end of the year

3. I’ll care less about my appearance

4. I’ll care less about what people think of me

5. I’ll use less of MSN

6. I’ll use less of Facebook

7. I’ll practise my violin more

8. I’ll grow to be more like Christ each day

9. I’ll never forget that my hope lies in Christ alone

10. I’ll love God more, love others more, and love myself less

Okay, I don’t know what else to say, and I suck at ending off my posts, so I shall just end it here now.

SS Mates!

Today the Sec 3 2009 Sunday School class went for lunch, our first (and only) outing for the year. We went to SP (where our SS teacher Aunty Agnes (ong) works) for the buffet lunch which she paid for since staff gets discount (thank you aunty agnes ) and then andrea, camilla & I went to watch Sherlock Holmes in Plaza Sing.

I’m really unhappy with the way things turned out for my SS class this year. I thought it would be a beautiful journey together as we encourage each other in our walk with God and learn from each other through studying God’s word. But nobody likes to come, nobody wants to come, nobody comes, I’m alone most of the time, I haven’t learnt a single thing.

All that’s happened is that I’ve tried to encourage my SS mates to come but in the end I think they got pissed off at me, and I felt like crying for my teacher when she prayed that they’d arrive safely and come soon (well I blinked them away before “Amen”), because I knew they were all hanging out downstairs loitering around instead of coming up, and yet she seemed innocently and genuinely concerned.

Our batch of 5 maybe very small, but 5 people is still ENOUGH to make a good SS class if we try! I’m saddened ‘coz I know our class can be so much MORE than what it is right now. And what is it right now? DEAD.

I strongly believe that SS can help our transformation to Christ-likeness and we should try to love one another and build each other up. I pray that everyone (including myself when at times I feel not-so-excited about going for SS alone) will have a passion for receiving His word and growing in the knowledge of His love and goodness. I’ve already stopped trying to save the situation on my own (‘coz it fails like every single time) but I know my Lord can move mountains

I don’t know what this title should be

Okay I apologise for the previous post. I think I’m still young, innocent, foolish, and have evidently failed to realise what should really be important to me as my identity is that of a beloved child of my Father in heaven. And I think I also lie to myself (and others) a lot – I find myself telling people ever so often that “Oh you know, God’s love is more than enough for you… He’s all you’ll ever really need, and the fact that He loves you despite you being so unworthy should make you feel soooo happy” when apparently His love isn’t actually “more than enough” for me and I keep drowning in this whirlpool of human desires like beautiful appearance and acceptance. Gah how hypocritical of me.

Logic and my brain is telling me SO CLEARLY that:

1. I don’t need to be, do or achieve anything to receive my Father’s love and acceptance, hence weight does not matter – I don’t need to BE pretty, I don’t need to CARRY OUT my weight-loss, I don’t need to ACHIEVE any nice-looking body

2. My Father’s love and acceptance is really all I need, and hence acceptance from fellow insignificant human beings pales in comparison, fades to practically nothing of importance. In fact, the fact that He loves me should overwhelm me with such joy and peace of mind that nothing else should make me feel as lousy as I do right now.

3. My daddy God loves me despite me being so unworthy (note to self: The very fact that I’m being so obsessive over myself already shows how unworthy I am). It is wrong to damage both my physical and emotional health by obsessing over this issue as I am placing my hope in things that won’t last forever, rather than in my Creator who loves me for who I am as seen in His everlasting mercies

But there’s only so far that logic and my own mind can control my actions – my heart isn’t telling me all these truths that should have been instilled in my heart a long time ago.

It just hit me quite hard because I’ve been over-eating during these holidays (like seriously a lot a lot), and it’s probably because I’ve restricted myself for so long that my willpower has SNAPPED and I’ve begun to have this hysterical sort of LOVE for food because absence does make the heart grow fonder… Very very very very very much fonder. It’s a horrible irony that one can be obsessed with food & weight-loss at the same time. Because often the obsession with food is way stronger than the other obsession. And then after over-eating I feel like rubbish.

I’m not saying I’m gonna stop dieting/obsessing now, no way! I just pray that I diet/exercise for the right reasons. Hmmm, I just need a bit more time, thanks for all your prayers & encouragement (:

And I thank You Lord that Your mercies are new every morning, that You see my weaknesses and still look upon me with Your perfect love. I thank You that truly my hope lies in You and You alone. And though I may struggle here on Earth with my frail human nature and worldly desires for unimportant and insignificant things, I trust that You are my strength and my song, that You give me strength to do what pleases You and not what pleases Man.

Okay I feel quite happy now I just ate a chicken bao but I’m gonna skip my 3km run today (okay la, also because the skies are grey…zzz). Tomorrow there’s a buffet lunch with my Sunday School people, though I’m not excited about the buffet, I’m looking forward to the fellowship

ZZZ!!!

The phone rang, I turned around and ran towards it. The house phone in my room is located in front of a big mirror above my dressing table, and as I ran towards the phone I SAW MY THIGH FATS WOBBLING UP AND DOWN UP AND DOWN UP AND DOWN bouncing bouncing bouncing *sobs wails weeps screams tear-hair* I hate my upper arms I hate my wrists I hate my butt I hate my thighs I hate my calves I hate my tummy I hate my cheeks I hate my fingers, in fact the only thing I like is my neck.

-___- URRRRGHHHHHHHH.

Christmas Eve, Day, D’ARTS, Sunday

Totally overdue (not like anyone cares since no one reads), but here goes anyway. Christmas eve was Juniors Christmas Party at Rachel’s house, yay! We had carolling and dunno which silly person demanded that I sing a solo for I’ll Make My Heart A Bethlehem, and all the silly silly Juniors people supported this enthusiastically and Rachel snatched away the cushion which I was using to cover my face D: Anyone who knows me should know that I can’t sing in front of people, so obviously I screwed it up and ran out of breath and stopped singing completely halfway. I clarify once again: Singing during worship is very very very extremely different from singing in front of people D: Worship is easier, free-er (: We played Wii and I lost the MUSIC game and everyone thought it was very funny /:

On Christmas day, we went to church at 10am for Christmas Service (: My family sat in the 4th level sanctuary instead of 2nd like we normally do. It was PACKED. But anyway, we got to enjoy the CHOIR and ORCHESTRA heh 2nd level would be normal contemporary style which we get every week anyway. Like duh I didn’t understand half of what was going on since it was in Chinese… whtaeverrrr ;D Orchestra people all look very sian when they play… wahaha.

I was stressing out like crazy ‘coz I was supposed to collect money from people for d’ARTS but then my parents wanted us to leave church so fast, and I also didn’t get to chat with people whom I wanted to. So I was a bit hot and bothered when I got into the car ‘coz I hadn’t collected the money from much people. Got annoyed at my parents because of that and got shouted back at, and of course I shouldn’t have started any quarrels since it IS Christmas. Zzzzz.

Next day was Jamin’s wedding and d’ARTS. Again, got annoyed at my brother who didn’t wanna leave the wedding early so that we could make it for d’ARTS prac on time /: Hmph. I can’t stand being late, seriously. Anyway, got to PLMGPS and set up. I really regret not bringing shorts/berms to change since I was still wearing my nice nice wedding clothes and sweated like crazy. I started feeling reeeeeaaallyyyy sleepy halfway.

We had prac which didn’t go terribly well but nevermind. Anyway, the real thing went quite well though many people (ie all the girls except me) were stressing out like crazy and freaking out backstage. Before the performance started, I played my very first game of CHESS against dickson and I WON! AHAHAHAHA and it’s not even his first time. Chess is so stressful though, ‘coz I would always immediately assume that I had made a bad move after every single move I made.

Oh well kudos to my band members xiaowei shimin shirmaine dickson luther james sean bro ben and of course our director steven And kudos to the PA crew and emcees and actors and dancers and committee

We had to clear up after the performance, which was quite hilarious except that I kept being made fun of >:( The number of peanuts on the floor was quite disturbing. Then we went home and I caught a nap in the car ‘coz I had to stay up late to do some video for the next day, a compilation of pics + video. But when I got home, the memory card of the video camera didn’t show itself to contain any video files at all D: Stressed out to ppl on MSN (haha sorry everyone) and in the end I gave up, did the parts which didn’t require any videos, and slept at 2.

Next morning we went to church at 8.30 to practice for Pastor’s farewell song (video is on facebook, though we don’t sound thaaaaat great). I emphasize, I suck at singing solos on stage. So while the practice went quite well, the real thing was of course, not as good. But anyway I hope Rev Leow & his family enjoyed it Harmonising is so fun…

Went home, and then took bus back to church for annual dinner (we went earlier than parents ‘coz xuan was emcee-ing so she had to be there early). In the end yue & I got pulled into the d’ARTS debrief in the seminar room while the CJ people were screaming away in the sanctuary ‘coz their camp had just started.

Annual dinner was… very very very very very noisy. The youths were all in the min-chapel and hence we were in our own world whereas all the adults were in the social hall, so we didn’t follow their program at all. HAHA I think the EJ people are really quiet compared to the CJ/MM people especially the CJ people (well obviously since you have zx). The noise was like a FORCE. THERE WAS ORH NEE I got fed a flower by ZX, “chang jing lu yao chi cao” (Giraffes must eat grass… or in this case, flower). Of course I didn’t eat it -.- Joshua huang informed me that I’ma freak because I look 19 (though I beg to differ ‘coz of my babyish face) and then dickson had to say, “You know her sense of adjustment/estimation is very bad” ‘coz I thought dickson was 20+ and joshua was in secondary sch /: And that all the sec 4s in CJ are like above 18 kind. Well they’re all too talllllll.

Said goodbyes to pastor fui and pastor wilfred who are leaving church next year, and said hi to the new Korean pastor and his family Anyway I had fun despite all the noise!

Four very eventful days squeezed into one post. Can’t wait to delete this blog ie when school reopens and I feel the stress.

Merry Christmas Eve!

I won’t say I’m the type to get all high & excited about Christmas, but I acknowledge that most people usually remember Jesus’ death on the cross rather than the very act of COMING to Earth. Like I’ve heard many times, it’s like a lot a lot a lot worse than a human being reduced to a bug. Haha imagine if you create a… micro-organism, and then you reduce yourself to a micro-organism. Except maybe multiply your superiority by one million and then fractionize (???) the micro-organism by another million.

My mum wants to attend some midnight service thing, because Jesus was born at NIGHT hence it seems more appropriate to celebrate at night. But the kids are going to Christmas party @ Rachel’s house with the other plcmc youths so I guess we’re not doing the midnight service thing.

Haha and I think it’s quite weird if parents give their children Christmas presents. Like, I give you LIFE, then I give you food/lodging/clothes/education for all the years that you’re still dependent, and then I give you an ang-pow on CNY, and then on Christmas, I GIVE YOU ANOTHER PRESENT. Haha, I think my parents have stopped giving us gifts (also partially ‘coz it’s quite hard to think of new gifts to give) and I’m quite glad about this. Put the money into our college fund please!

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m not that excited for Christmas. I think usually I’ll wake up feeling quite happy, and then after about 1 hour I’ll feel normal again. And I think that Christmas came way too fast this year, I’m not terribly happy about the way my holidays have turned out (too much food, too much homework, too much church things, too little free time) but I’ll give thanks to God on Christmas for everything since my own annoyance is incredibly insignificant compared to the glory of Jesus humble yet magnificent birth (:

My Friday

So last Friday was fun The day after Juniors Camp. I met Yingxuan & Sara at the adam road food place ‘coz yx needed to pass me the videos to edit for d’arts. The two of them are utterly hilarious, don’t remember laughing so hard for a long time. Seriously man, witty people… making fun of the “lin clan”, I just laughed and laughed & couldn’t answer back.

Went down to Orchard Road that night, quite surprised my parents let us (younger sis & I) go! Intended to watch the church orchestra perform but I arrived about half an hour too late. But anyway, got to say hi to my YFC friends who I miss to the max ): Haha, was met with a lot of “ehhh why you pang seh us this year…”. But really happy to see them again

Then went to starbucks & met dickson/yihern there. Thanks yihern for buying us coffee. Haha, and of course my chinese was made fun of but aiya whatever, I also make fun of their english. Exceeded curfew by half an hour but somehow managed to escape the scolding.

We couldn’t catch a cab, so we took the 174 home. It was so crowded that we had to enter through the back door and couldn’t tap our EZ link. And it was like sardines… all the bodies packed together.

But anyway, had loads of fun that friday haha. Church people are really fun to hang out with Sad that I missed the concert though. I felt quite adventurous going out at night at Orchard… hahaha, since I’m such a guai kid who stays at home all day.

Juniors Camp 09

I approached juniors camp this year with… no feelings. In fact it felt like it was just another activity I was doing and not terribly special/important at all. Usually I’d be really excited about it and set its date as a super-important date in my head. But this year it felt like… I dunno. Haha, NOTHING.

Anyway, not gonna do the detailed description of each day like I used to. I think the camp itself also made me feel like it wasn’t really as spectacular as previous years, because there weren’t as many games, and the seniors game wasn’t as dirty. Of course, this is not a bad thing AT ALL. Heh

Was quite ministered to by the speaker Adrian & what he said, ‘coz I felt it was very applicable. Enjoyed the discussions with dear yingxuan as our wisest discussion leader & steph/melissa as part of the discussion group, though the question “is there anything you don’t like about yourself” made me terribly uncomfortable, haha. But I felt I was able to share very honestly what I felt about certian things. Very blessed to have YX as the leader Love her wisdom & encouragement very much

Games were definitely MUCH LESS DIRTY than previous years, and they were quite… how do I say this. Not as crazy, I guess. Like even the amazing race only had 3 stations and the games we played weren’t dirty/crazy at all, which I reinforce again, isn’t a bad thing ;D Even the seniors game wasn’t dirty. In fact, to a certain extent, it made us cleaner with ‘coz it was basically a shampoo-stealing war and then a “who-can-produce-the-most-foam” competition which involved very very very rough and violent shampooing of our own hair (of course girls are the greatest victims). This was fun to the max, though people were quite shocked at the amount of hair that I lost that evening D: And the shampoo, of course, wasn’t 100% pure shampoo. We had things like egg, milk & chicken oil.

Worship leading was great really thankful that it was one of the rare times where I’m up there & I’m not really thinking about myself as much as I usually would if I were playing keys (: & thank God for helping me find a replacement drummer (cos my original drummer forgot tt he wasn’t gonna be there on the day I was leading worship). Haha, thanks Wilson! & Sara too for learning the intro of Your Name

Played keyboard for the 3rd slot of extended worship, lead by Rachel (exactly the same as Orion…). Again she lead This is How We Overcome, and again I wanted to jump & dance so badly but I couldn’t. Haha, exactly what happened during Orion. In fact, the sight of about 95% of the people jumping away was very very similar to Orion, except of course this was just 1/3 of the people. Sang back-up for her too; there were times where I would forget that I was the back up singer and then just leave her to sing by herself. Hahaha :X 

On the last night I stayed up until 4.30 playing Captain’s Ball

Really thankful that wenjie & tedmund came, especially tedmund. I met the 2 of them at the LS Children’s Camp, & now I’m seeing how God works, ‘coz if I hadn’t been “tricked” into helping out, I wouldn’t have met the 2 of them & then they would’ve missed out on the Juniors Camp experience. I recall talking to Tedmund on the phone before Juniors Camp & he was complaining “why should I go… the games sound so STUPIDDDD!!!” and it really took much persuasion to make him go. But ultimately he had fun (“okay la okay la… it’s quite fun la…” – tedmund) and could tell that wenjie had loads of fun too (: Thank God that there were many many many new small cute young faces at camp too! I always had the feeling that Juniors is getting older & older by the years ‘coz there ain’t enough young ones coming in. Now just need to get the young ones to attend Juniors regularly

Overall, despite this camp not being as ”BIG” as previous camps, I still DID have lots of fun in different ways (other than games la) and glad for the worships & speaker sessions & discussions too Thanks committee for working so hard, & thanks God for always being in our midst

D’Arts

Starting to feel less sian about d’ARTS (: It gets boring/frustrating at times but I’m v glad to be given the opportunity to get to know more ppl from the mm/cj & also to catch up with ppl whom I alr knew (ie ppl I met from Orion). I think it’s definitely nicer talking to ppl face-to-face than on MSN & facebook & I realise there’s lotsa church ppl whom I do talk to on msn/fb more than in real life. Or maybe never in real life at all. Which is quite unhealthy also, haha. And I realise that talking on MSN/FB is sometimes quite deceiving, after all, how can you tell what a person’s like if the person’s given like as much time as he/she needs to give a reply. Anyway, so yeah happy to be able to talk to more ppl face-to-face, especially ppl who didn’t go for orion

Interestin’ to see the dif ways in which we do our stuff. Like ytd during prac I saw the cj guys jumping on top of each other & rolling around on the floor, which was terribly unbecoming but tt’s how they have fun (: I think the ej guys wouldn’t do tt as much, maybe they like talkin’ abt body-building more. LOL. Saw a lot of the MM girls staying back after service just to hang out & help out, which is cool too, seems quite relaxed as compared to my family when we just rush off immediately after church for lunch & then go home & probably quarrel in the car or sth. Of course the common thing is tt we’re all youths & can relate to each other if we try Great tt we’re still able to have fun tgt despite our dif practises/tradition for we’re all one in the bond of His love

It’s also fun laughing at our mistakes during pracs & making “puke-faces” at each other when we screw up real bad. Fun to laugh at the ppl who have been instructed to “rock” more to the song & look more emo, ‘coz when they try and try it’s total epic failure. Hahaha!

My initial annoyance at ppl who didn’t bother trying to be punctual for pracs (if they even bothered turning up at all) or ppl who didn’t try listening to steven’s instructions have since faded, can see tt most ppl are becoming more committed & learning to laugh @ their own mistakes & improve Thank God for that! It’s cool to see the musical improvements, & vocalists improvements too, though some ppl still need to memorise lyrics

Lastly I thank God for His river of grace, when I’m feeling all high & mighty when I’m in the BAND (wah so cool… -.-) and my kb playing has never been corrected by steven before and ppl compliment my back-up singing, but my Lord continually reminds me that all gifts are God-given, all good things come from Him, & He’s called me to do this for His glory.

Concert is this Saturday! There’ll be music/songs, food, friends (and of course, FUN… cliche but whatever). Though the performance might not turn out great, I don’t think I’ll have any regrets ‘coz my God is still great no matter what & it’s been a blessing to serve, truly! :)