RASH!

Gosh! I've been through 2 weeks of cough and cold... I'm nearly healed... and now my body caught another disease!! RASH!!! It's this huge patch of red spots on my chest... and I don't even know where I got it from! It woke me up at 4am, made me go for a shower, made me put on some cream and powder and now it's keeping me awake. I just.... have to.... keep myself from... scratching it! urgh!!

I've planned to go shopping in Gold Coast later today with my friends. With this rash, how am I going to look good in anything?!

But I'm not really concerned about that now. Now, my mind is just thinking... resist that itch, resist that itch, resist that itch, resist that itch............................

Heart of a servant

I am back to blog again! :) I've been away last 3 days for a trip to Bribie Island with the bunch of leaders from Daniel subdistrict of my church. Its such a privilege since I get to learn so much from the leaders that are so willing to serve the Lord. It wasn't packed with teachings, but its more of a relaxing trip with lots of free time to chit chat, play by the beach, meaningful discussions and lots of good food! (thanx to our great cook Gloria) Just staying with them for 3 days made me realize that I have so much to learn from them.... particularly their hearts in serving.

How many of us are willing to wake up early just to be in church at 7am? How many of us are willing to take time to prepare for teachings and discussions every week? How many of us are willing to organize caregroups every week so that we can all have a great time together? How many of us are willing to take time out for these things despite our busy life in uni or work? How many of us would give these sacrifices without silently complaining?

I see a passion for Christ in them. I see the love of Christ in them. I see their love for God's people in their hearts. And I really admire them.

On the 2nd night, we had a special activity lead by Beng, our subdistrict leader. He set an example to all of us that we are all here to serve and that we should have a heart like Jesus. Our unit leaders are suppose to wash our feet! Just like how Jesus washed His disciples' feet (John 13). One by one he washed our feet. We were reluctant to let him at first, but we know it had to be done. Tears started to roll down our cheeks. It reminded us of how Jesus is so willing to cleanse His people that He would wash their feet, the dirtiest part of their body. Imagine God coming down and wash your feet! And you ask, how could such highly person wash my feet? But unless it is done, we cannot be clean. And that was His task. The sacrifice that He had done for us, because He love us.

Once in a while I would silently complain when I do things for people. Once in a while I might find excuses to run away from tasks. I'm so afraid that people might take advantage of me, so much until I miss opportunities to help people sometimes. I don't want to be such a person anymore. I will continue to learn from Jesus and my leaders to be a good servant. A servant who is so willing to serve God's people. A servant who loves to do her tasks. A servant who doesn't complain.

A teary night with a great lesson learnt.

*cough*

Oh man, many people are getting sick these days! As for our household, it started with Andrew, then my turn, and now Pooi Yian also caught it. It was really bad. You can hear us coughing and clearing our throats every morning. It even went to the point where Pooi Yian got headaches, dizziness and even vomitted!! Poor girl... Get some good rest. hmmm... probably its the weather. Its spring season now!!

You would probably imagine beautiful flowers blooming everywhere, sweet aroma in the gardens or something like that.... I wish it would be like that too, but I'm a city girl. Slim chances of having that in the middle of a city heh :P It'll be nice if I get a chance to go down to Toowoomba for their flower festival! Talk about chances, its mid semester break next week! woohoo! Most probably we might wanna go down there if we don't have too much work in hand. hmm... we'll see about that.

Anyway I just got to know from valz that Ching Choo had just realized that she fractured her ankle! Boy, that sounds bad. Especially when its a month before her wedding! :( Let's really pray to God that her ankle will heal asap and everything will go well. Take care, girl! *cough* urgh this cough is really getting to me... If you have time, please do pray for us okay..... pray that Sharon won't catch the disease as well! Let her body be strong as ever... to take care of us ma hehe... She's the only one in the house who didn't catch the germs :) Anyway I'd better rest now... see yous!

Stay in touch

The weather is getting really weird around here. Its raining when the sun is still shining brightly. A nice day to stay at home, relax and enjoy the breeze. I had a slow start on my day today. Mainly because I don't have classes today, no meetings to go to, no one to meet up with... All my housemates have gone out for their own stuff... and I'm here all alone, lost in my own pool of thoughts.

The memory of my phone call last night to a friend in KL kept playing in my mind. He is leaving to UK for his studies tonight. He is a good friend and we do exchange phone calls sometimes just to chat and gossip. Last night we chatted about his preparation to UK, his farewell parties with his friends, things he would do once he reach UK.... Suddenly I wonder what would happen to us? Will we lose contact due to the time difference? Would we be too busy to even try to keep in touch? It has happened before, would it happen again?

I have close friends far away from me. Although we may continue to keep in touch with each other, constantly email or make phone calls back in the 1st few months, but I cannot deny the communication between us tends to cease as time goes by. Its not that I don't care anymore, but sometimes its the way life is. We may have new friends, new interests, new things to occupy our time. But this friendship is always kept in my heart. And hopefully when we meet again soon, we'll relive our happy times again.

Now I just want to wish my friend, Jason all the best in his overseas study experience. Not to play around too much and to get good results enough to make his parents proud. And not forgetting... stay in touch.....

Eyes provide sight. Heart provides insight.

Have you ever felt lost in your life? Didn't know where to go, what decision to make, which road to take? You don't know where to go for an answer. Different people gives you different opinions. And all these facts seems to be like a puzzle you could not solve. In the end, you don't know what you want for yourself anymore.... It like a dilemma when people ask you what your decision is, you really don't know how to answer them. They know they can't help you make the decision. You know they can't help you make the decision. And all of a sudden, you felt so lost.

I wish so much that I would not need to face this dilemma. Sometimes I let people make decisions for me. But is that the best way to do it? So many people tell me ways to do it: make a table of pros and cons, set your priorities, check whether you have any obligations. But sometimes the route that it leads to, is not really what we want it to be. But then again, which route did you want it to be? I just wish I could turn the table around and have all the pros on the lists. But we can never have everything, can we? I cannot be the greedy scumbag who get everything I want, can I?

Why does God gives me hard decisions to make all the time? To train up my analytical mind? It sure isn't easy. Or perhaps He is urging me to fully rely on Him. Its not something easy to do either, when I feel that I'm not in control of my life.

I like the way God answered 'me' in my previous post when He said 'If you look outside you will not know where you are heading. Look inside. Looking outside, you dream. Looking inside, you awaken. Eyes provide sight. Heart provides insight.' Perhaps what I should do is to seek answers from inside..... to seek God further. Then maybe He'll provide some insights.....

A conversation with God

This morning I came across this email message which is pretty meaningful. Its a conversation with God. Have a read and ponder upon the answers. I kind of modified it a little coz it was too long.... hopefully it will speak into your hearts.....

Me: Why do good people always suffer?

God : Diamond cannot be polished without friction. Gold cannot be purified without fire. Good people go through trials, but don't suffer. With that experience their life become better not bitter.

Me: You mean to say such experience is useful?

God : Yes. In every terms, Experience is a hard teacher. She gives the test first and the lessons afterward.

Me: But still, why should we go through such tests? Why cant we be free from problems?

God : Problems are Purposeful Roadblocks Offering BeneficialLessons (to) Enhance Mental Strength. Inner strength comes from struggle and endurance, not when you are free from problems.

Me: Frankly in the midst of so many problems, we don't know where we are heading....

God : If you look outside you will not know where you are heading. Look inside. Looking outside, you dream. Looking inside, you awaken. Eyes provide sight. Heart provides insight.

Me: Sometimes I ask, who am I, why am I here. I cant get the answer.

God : Seek not to find who you are, but to determine who you want to be. Stop looking for a purpose as to why you are here. Create it. Life is not a process of discovery but a process of creation.

God : Well. Keep the faith and drop the fear. Don't believe your doubts and doubt your beliefs. Life is a mystery to solve not a problem to resolve. Trust me. Life is wonderful if you know how to live.

A clumsy girl

Yeah I'm a clumsy girl. And I have well 'demonstrated' it yesterday.

Yesterday morning, I was kind of in a rush... Its already 10am, I had to be in uni at 10.30am, and I needed to send a letter to my friend urgently! So I quickly got my stuff and rushed out the door and down the stairs.... in the next minute, there I was, kneeling at the bottom of the stairs. I missed a step, lost my balance, sprained my ankle and badly bruised my knees. OUCH!!! Have you ever sprained your ankle before?? Its definitely no joke ok! I was screaming my lungs out when Andrew helped rub my ankle. Boy, that was fun (for him; not for me). It reminded me the time when Edna sprained her ankle during secondary school and I had to rub her ankle for her.... (I was in St. John Ambulance). It was pretty bad, her ankle went swollen at the spot, went to see doctor, and took around 1 week to recover! scary.....

So I went around limping these 2 days. Its still swollen, but its recovering. I really wanna give thanx to all those who have showed their concern for me, helped rub my ankle, prayed for me or became my 'tongkat' hehe. You know who you are, I just really appreciate you for being there. Thank you! And I'm looking forward to run and jump again tomoro! ;)

A cool night to reflect on my day...

Its a calm night tonight. Really soothing to just sit here and stare at the starry sky, feeling the cool breeze around me and listening to the stillness of the night. Just that I didn't quite have the perfect balcony to sit in... with all our laundry everywhere... it didn't quite give me any space to sit. I'll just sit inside since its cold outside anyway.

Today was a busy day for me in church... and a REALLY tiring one. I woke up at 6am and reached church at 7.45am. Why so early, you ask? We're celebrating our 11th church anniversary today! woohoo! And we had to be there to rehearse for our dance. :P Yeah, me, Sharon, Lorraine and a few others joined the closing ceremony dance. We have been practicing for it for more than a month now. Today we're finally performing it on stage! The song is Shackles(Praise Him) by I-don't-know-who.... its a really funky fast song and the dance steps are no joke man... we all had to really put much of our efforts in just remembering the dance steps.... and well, it turned out pretty cool. It pretty much drained out the last bit of my energy... and gave me a good time struggling to keep awake after that. Sorry to the leaders who were teaching today...

I reached home at 5pm and I went flat on the bed for 3 hours. That's why I'm pretty much awake now hehe... So now, should I surf around the Internet? Do my work? or a game? hmmm.......

Photoes...

Here are some photoes that I've promised. Photoes from the survivor night! Enjoy....
Opening dance with Andrew (don't you agree that he's the skinny white chicken?), Moses and Martin. There are a few girls dancing on stage as well... pretty cool

A duet by John Pak and Lorraine Lie( my shephard!) woohoo I'm so proud of her :)

Haha... this is a shot of the make up competition I mentioned earlier.

The Islander dance done by Tasha.

Daniel 2 group photo! :)

No more spoon feeding

Today I had quite an interesting chat with a friend. He read my depressed post 2 days ago and came to rescue with some advice! haha... sort of... :) I don't remember the exact lines of the conversation :p Unlike my roommate, Sharon, who can remember every single bit! Wait till she tells you about her conversation with her other friend! haha... Impressive... Anyway back to the topic, I very much agreed with what he said.... The education system here in Australia is really very different from the one back home.

In all my study life, kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and college, I've always been spoon fed with information. Everything I needed to know for the exams are taught in classes, with exercises to supervise my progress, and small classes for better concentrated teaching. Sad to say so, things aren't like that anymore. This never happens in uni. Welcome to the uni world! Welcome to the real world! No more spoon feeding, no more easy life.... I once thought uni life was easy since I've only had 3 days of class in a week. I guess I thought wrong!!

No.1: Since no one is there to make sure you go to classes.... everything was about self motivation, self discipline. They don't send warning letters to your parents for your absence in class :D
No.2: We need to do extensive readings every week to understand the lectures. Unless you have a great mind to understand 15 pages of slides which are discussed in several chapters in the textbook! And although you only have 3 hours on that subject in a week, they made sure you had materials to read on for the rest of the time.
No.3: We need to learn the facts in a subject and apply it to the real world problem. And I wonder... when did we ever had to apply add maths to the real world??

I know I can do better than my current achievement.... just that now I'll have to feed myself. I will surely work on it. My 1st ingredient would be self discipline. :p

yeay! I'm happy again!

haha! It was my 1st time playing keyboard in caregroup today! And I played pretty well! hehe... umm... at least they told me I played well lar. I really wanna thank God for this opportunity. I was really really nervous that time. I only practiced once at home and I forgot to bring my own scores to caregroup. (I had all my notes on the scores.) But everything went well... I didn't have nervous breakdown :p And lucky thing they had another guitarist playing with me, so when I play the wrong keys, my noise gets covered up a bit hehe.

It was really a good experience. At the start I played everything according to how my shephard taught me. Then slowly I followed the flow and I added my little twists here and there... and all fell right into place. It was really God's grace moving there :) I just love Him! muacks! :p And I'm really happy again despite my 'PMS' mood yesterday. Praise God!

I need to thank someone as well... (he's been bugging me to add his name in this blog :p) He's Andrew Chan (the skinny white chicken) ... heheh... Yeah he really helped me through the practice and showed me how to play smoothly... although he was constantly praising his chicken rice instead of the music I played! What an encouragement right?! sigh... anyways, thank God for him as well :)

What's the matter with ME??

Last time I use to excel in my studies... in secondary school I'm in one of the better classes and my grades are top 10 in my class. I scored straight As for my PMR and 6As in my SPM. In diploma, I had 5 distinctions and an overall credit.... yeah enough of my bragging... not that I have anything to brag about now.

Ever since I came to Australia, there seems to be a major downturn in my studies.... and in my 1st semester I flunked my 1st subject. How COOL can that be!? I don't understand what's happening to me! Are the subjects a lot tougher? Well, there never were any easy subjects in any part of my life... So what's wrong with me??! Today I got my mid semester results. And yeah, you guessed it right. I got a bad result. I totally flunked it (50% passing mark). And mixing around hard core students who got good results certainly didn't get my mood any better. Hmm... but its good mixing with them, at least I have someone to help me through the subjects (and I have to say something good about that oso coz probably they might read this! :p) But what's the matter with me? Why couldn't I score as much as I use to? Why don't I have the motivation anymore? Where did all my intelligence go? Maybe I'm not that intelligent after all.....

I don't wanna disappoint my mom, I didn't tell her about my flunking results and assured her that I'm doing just fine. Now, I'll just have to do my best and hope my GPA will inch a little higher... like as if it can do much difference. Friends, don't worry about me, I'll be fine. If you see me all happy, just be happy with me, you know I never like to sulk in front of people... so don't make me! Let me be the happy go lucky girl k?

self discipline

My 1st question is.... is the tag board server having some problem or is there just something wrong with mine? I haven't been able to tag anything since 2 days ago and whenever I refresh my page, an invitation to join some war game pops up. What's happening? Could someone enlighten me?

haar.. its been 3 days since my last post. Haven't been posting coz I had my mid semester exam yesterday. Yeah, self discipline caught me and I had to obey :P It went alright. I've done my best and I believe that God will do the rest, amen! ;) hmm... it was another busy sunday today. Went for church sunday service, had lunch together, members meeting.... then we went for a sunday market at this place called SouthBank. Its a really nice flee market by the river which is held every year for Riverfest celebration. We didn't spend much time shopping there though since it started raining.

After that, we went for a movie called Suddenly 30. A pretty nice movie that talks about this 13 year old girl wanting so much to be cool and popular, she wished she could be 30, and be like someone in the magazines. Her wish came true and she went on to discover about herself, and found that she became popular, and also she became quite a mean person. The stories goes on with how she tries to change back her life and stuff like that lar.... I could really remember when I was 14... I wish I was 17... and when i was 17, I wish I was 21. The future sometimes looks so much more attractive because I'll have more freedom, would be more independent and more attractive haha! But then I realize that you can only achieve that by building up your character through time, learning from mistakes in life and perhaps through some extra facial mask sessions. Whatever we achieve in the future depends on how we live our lives now. So I guess if I wanna be successful next time, I'll have to start now, put more effort in studies, exercise more, drink more water, sleep earlier and wake up earlier...... that all depends whether my self discipline could catch up with me hehe... good luck to my future!

What the..?!

I had a pretty normal day yesterday... woke up, a guy from telephone company came to fix a second line for us, went to uni, went for caregroup.... then I came home, headed for the computer, clicked on the icon to dial up to the internet....... then it prompted : No dial tone. I thought well, perhaps pooi yian was using the phone. So I went to do my other stuff, took my bath, yada yada yada. Then I tried going online again... still no dial tone! So i went and check on her room, her lights were off! strange.... Andrew wasn't using the phone line either! hmm let me check on the phone... NO dial tone!!! Suddenly it dawn on me that the telephone company guy could have disconnected my line!! What the! Somewhat frustrated, I sat in front of the computer organizing my song files silently hoping some miracle would happen and I'll get my phone line back. However the clouds did not part and no big hand came to reconnect my line again. Being a stubborn ass, I refused to sleep although I was pretty tired. I've always stayed up late every night anyway! And because of that, now I have to struggle through the day feeling lethargic all over... grr.... I'm gonna complain to the company! Perhaps I might even earn myself some free phone calls! :p

And yeah, that's why this post is written in the evening in uni. Anyways I have to go to class soon. I hope I won't fall asleep there...