Tonight was one of those nights that I had to make a choice what to watch, with the options spliced evenly between several DVDs and movies. I'm in the midst of a self-learn guitar resource, and then I just got another separate guitar resource from Min Jie earlier today, and I kinda just started the TV sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Not to mention several movies which I wanted to watch haha. But nah, after several wrestles and tussles I went with this Louie Giglio's series of talks on grace.

From my ministries at church, and with the benefit of hindsight, I've realized over the years that I tend to be too much of a do-er. My natural response to any problem is to prescribe a do-able solution, and I'm not happy if no action is done. Or I try my best to do everything myself. I still do too much sometimes, and I tend not to allocate, or to just be, instead of doing. So we have this whole thing about grace being God at work over the things we cannot do, and I have to constantly remind myself to surrender and let God take control of the gracey stuff. And then elsewhere it says also to work out your salvation, that it is an outpouring of the grace given that we aspire to be Christ-like, which again I have to remind myself that it is "work out" and not "work for". I'm working out because of grace, and not so that I can gain grace. I don't need to, but I want to.

At the risk of this blog post sounding schizophrenic, I shall stop here. There's a lot more to grace than this too. But I'm glad I picked Giglio over guitar tutorials. Maybe now I will go on to HIMYM. 

The holidays has been extremely agreeable with me, I am taking my time to do the things that I want to do and I am sleeping vast amounts of hours that I haven't been able to do so previously. Regrettably, the reading has not been as prolific as I would like it to be! I bring my novel everywhere I go, but it usually stays in my bag and seldom sees the light of day. Which I guess is a really bad habit developed from my literature modules; I bring my assigned lit novels everywhere I go during term time too, but it remains well-traveled but not well-read. 

Anyway, I've got more time to spend it with cell group too, because I've always believed that young people need to go out and you need to do stuff with them to really connect. From lunches to dinners to movies to running to guitar lessons. I've been watching a lot of movies at home too. And in the guise of self-improvement I am finally starting to "formally" take guitar lessons from a DVD, which can get a bit boring after a while because learning music is essentially tedium and loads of memory work. But I will persevere. 

If you see me idling about, please nag at me to take out my book and finish reading it. 

It's a pleasure and a privilege to serve in church really. Gave a mini-message on language last night, and then was leading a small worship session tonight. I have to stress that I don't do both very often nowadays haha. I think half the technical skills or the spiritual acumen that I need to be an effective speaker or worship leader is lost through years of lack of sufficient practice. 

Tonight kinda reinforced what they say about the worship leader is to be ready with a word or a song for all season. I know Commissioner Lim reads this haha, but when Min Jie asked me to lead worship he only said 2 to 3 songs! Well it became 5 haha, but I'm just thankful that I've got great quiet time moments that I can bring into actual worship leading, and all the times that I force myself to go onstage without chord references. 

And last night was a very strong reminder of God's grace, and how it applies in my life. I'm not a perfect man, but it is really only through grace that I get to do the stuff I am doing now. A while back during Matthew's cell group, we watched a Louie Giglio DVD series on the topic of grace, and sadly to say I can't remember most of what was said haha. Need a refresher, and I think I will do just that. 

I seldom put up songs here, but this is an exception because of the song story that went behind it. This one is called "Hati Hamba", or translated as "Heart of a Servant". I first heard it sung at Heart of God Church when I attended one of their services. Maybe a few months later, I went back again, and they sang it for worship again! And I remembered the song striking a chord in me for each time I was there, whatever my circumstances and situation. I simply had to ask one of the youths in the congregation what song that was, and he said it was written by an Indonesian church and it's one of their more familiar songs that they always sing for worship. Great lyrics. You can search it up on Youtube or something.

HATI HAMBA

Standing in awe of Your grace
Setting my feet in Your ways
Entering into Your presence
To behold You face to face

God of all heaven and earth
Holding me in Your embrace
Unfailing love that surrounds me
Oh God I stand amazed

My Jesus, my Lord
You're the love of my life
Wherever You go
Wanna be by Your side
No longer I
But Christ living in me
Serving You for all eternity

My eyes set on You
In this race that I run
No longer my ways
Let Your will be done
Make me a servant
My heart's ever true
Clinging to the cross
I'll follow You

Exams have ended, and I am now currently enjoying my holidays! For most parts of it, my exams and revision has been great, this is one of the better prepared semesters in my university life. Really enjoyed what I was studying, and it actually felt like I was learning something this time round. The saddest part is that I will not be taking anymore literature modules from now on! Maybe I will sneak in for some of the lectures from the modules that I've always wanted to try, and I will read the books assigned for the course haha. But yup, the semester is over and I have a four months break now!

There's probably too many things I want to read and learn for the holidays. I kinda like just waking up and bumming around at home reading, or just mill around. Actually it's only been a few days since I ended exams. Have been helping out with the exam revisions for the young ones yesterday, Maths is great but I have to revise my Sec 3 Chemistry stuff just to be able to be of help haha. My want-to-read list for the holidays is too long and too intimidating, but I am determined to plow through it and complete as much as I can. 

And today's another interesting day, I'm going to start tuition with one of the boys from Gracehaven! For the longest time, Augustine has reminded me time and again of their need for volunteer tutors to go in and help out academically, and for the longest time I have been procrastinating, and also because I really have too much to do. But last year I partly recommended Joe Yong and Kah Jie to give tuition there, then Auntie Kristy has been literally goading me to go in hahaha every time I meet her she's challenging me what am I doing with my life. The confirmation kinda came when Jolene told me she's looking to volunteer there too. So, in I go tonight. 

Will post my reading reviews up here, partly to keep myself accountable to the things that I've set out to do this holiday! 

These past few days were spent mostly in church studying for my exams! I only have three exams this semester but my first paper doesn't start until Saturday! Which is really really late, because my sister ENDS on Friday and I only START on Saturday. Haha the additional time to study has been really helpful though, just that I tend to procrastinate and get complacent a lot more. 

It's exams for some of the younger people in my cell too, so I have been "helping" people to study as much as I am studying myself by nagging at them hahaha. But the most challenging was Ethel asking me A Maths questions! When I was in secondary school, both A Maths and E Maths were probably my strongest subjects, apart from Geography of course heh. But I can't remember most of my A Maths theories now, although I'm still fine for E because I have been teaching tuition for that. And before I forget, I'm really happy that Ethel's getting acquainted with everyone, she's joining us for about a month now and is another addition to the Sec 1-3 kiddies that are invading my life. 

And the corps officers decided to do a quick cleaning up of the office cabinets and shelves today. There are things that are lying about for months that we probably don't need, but we still keep them around anyway. It's with pangs of guilt that I watch them clear up, because I meant really to organize a spring cleaning before Chinese New Year! Totally overdued. And they wanted to cart out huge stacks of old War Cry copies and the Words of Life devotional, which is when I realized that the hoarder in me really aches to have them thrown away. Okay at least the Salvationist in me reasons that we're supposed to be selling the War Cry as evangelical material. So I figured I can just lump like three months' worth of War Cry issues together, put our church flyer on it then distribute it door to door to my neighbours. At least there's some chance my neighbours will read it somewhere. As for the Words of Life, it's going to be my cell's new devotional for the next three months! 

Pictures, to cover up for the long wordy post. 

UPDATE

It's time to announce the winner! Congratulations to Joe Yong!! Thanks for inciting an illicit love triangle for my duck and Bulbasaur and Buttercup, I really laughed out at your tweet, and Matthew confirmed it hahaha. And, a consolation prize to Andrea too, for the literal lame-ness of it haha! To all those who participated, thank you for indulging in my silliness, really appreciate your efforts in crafting a caption, and I hope this little contest does not render the quality of your replies (and my friendship with you) diminished in any sense; they were all great and really entertaining! Hope you all had as much fun following this as I did, at least till the next contest that I can think of. You can read all the entries below. Thank you again!!!!!

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Reaching my 10,000th tweet on Twitter, and I've decided to hold a small caption-the-photo contest to celebrate the occasion! I really got my inspiration from a friend of mine from school, he has wacky contests every now and then to celebrate his birthday and Christmas, and he just wants to give away prizes for the fun of it. And since this year is the year-to-be-generous year for me, I'm doing the same and my photo that I've asked people to caption, is this!

And these are the responses I've received thus far, I will add on to it when I receive one.

Lynn - Bubbles: "We shall not discriminate against the duck, just because he isn't green".
Yurong - in deep discussion on how to cure their owner from boredom.
Priscilla - Ducky to bulbasaur: Stop bulling buttercup. Buttercup (smugly): Yeah! Bulbasaur (grouchily): Okaaayyyy...
Joe Yong - Duck: Wat u looking at? This hot babe is mine. Green monster: I think I like u*pointing to duck* buttercup: this is awkward-.-
Tammy - duck: "hmm is that edible?" buttercup: "only one way to find out!"
Shi Hui - "now, Duckie, we'll just have to sit back and wait," said buttercup as she set down the watering can, "maybe he'll bloom."
Si Xuan - duckie and buttercup fighting against bulbasaur to save the world of twitter HAHAHA
Andrea - Duck: Ouch buttercup, ouch! you're stepping on my feet! Buttercup: oh yeah baby! Duck: bulbasaur, don't just stand there! Bulbausaur: bulbasaaaur~ Duck: bulbadsaur.
Eunice - THINGS IN LIFE THAT CAN'T BE STOPPED!

Some of it really cracked me up, haha the competition is only on Twitter or Instagram so you've gotta create one if you don't have one. And it's till 12 midnight tonight, the winner (chosen by me) will receive a $20 voucher. I don't know, maybe you can vote for your favourite so far and hopefully influence my choice. Have fun, cos I am having fun!

Been caught up with the frenzied writings of all my essays for the past two weeks. I am a literary machine churning out words by the thousands and sentences by the hundreds. So far it's been great, except that the grades I'll get are probably mediocre most of the time. The most frequent comments I usually get from my profs are "this is beautifully written, but ..." or "great expressions of language, but ..." haha! That's it, I just write well, but my arguments are usually lukewarm and my academic critiques half-hearted.

Anyway, I have to say the most interesting ones I had to write this sem include a 2,500 on Andy Warhol in the style of a museum review, and a 3,000 on three political cartoons. I'm quite sure my Warhol essay does not really fit as a review, but it was great fun to write because I'm learning about Pop Art at the same time. And I deliberately chose more obscure and complicated cartoons for the political cartoons one, so that I actually have the scope to write that much. But Tim was a great help for that paper, with his popular references and current affairs knowledge. I have one last paper to write, which is arguably the most difficult because it's the 20th century literature, I love studying it but I hate writing stuff on it.

Anyway, I took the night off writing tonight. Partly organized a small dinner and dessert, with some of the little ones from the cell. It involves dropping by Upp Thomson Road and checking out the new Udders ice cream shop that everyone is talking about. Photos below.

Managed to find time on Tuesday to go down to the Andy Warhol exhibition that's showing at ArtScience Museum now. Actually I don't really have a choice, because I have to do an essay on visual culture, and the requirements were to visit an exhibition of some sort. The module is great, just that I am not an art historian! While I do understand impressionism and modernism and abstract expressionism and some of the other art movements to some extent, I don't really have as much appreciation for the formal representations of art haha.

But Warhol is brilliant. There's no excuse to be mystified or bewildered by Mr. Pop Art himself, because it is really the dumbed-down version of high art into a celebration of the everyday. Really enjoyed the exhibition, just that towards the end I kinda realized that everything is silkscreen and repetitive (which is probably what Warhol wanted heh). So I went to watch his films. Which is even more repetitively deadening. Hahaha.

It was raining when I was done, and the Museum is a standalone building with no shelter to the Marina Bay Sands Shoppes. They have staff standing at the entrances of both buildings, lending out umbrellas for everyone. Pleasantly surprised, kinda made my visit even better.

Some of the shots I managed to sneak, until the museum staff came to tell me no photography. Love the Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor ones. Just classic.

Good Friday and Easter came and went, I was involved in the worship on Friday evening, and again on Sunday sunrise service. Believe it or not it is only my second or third sunrise service ever in all the years at church, which is really incredulous because I stay so near church and logically I should make the effort to wake up and hop over! This year is "mandatory" in a sense because I am playing guitar haha, but I'm glad it gave me impetus to drag myself out of bed at 6am just to come down. 

Good Friday evening was, needless to say, phenomenal and astounding. I don't know how to deal with emotions onstage heh it always always always overshadows the things that I want to say or do. Think I will probably need to devote time into this practice, especially at appeals and reflections where the Holy Spirit just decides to bless me with the greatest visions ever, but I can't articulate it without being breaking down. 

Probably the most meaningful Easter for the years to come. 

This needs to be written, because I cannot believe the amount of guitar/ukulele troubles that I am getting in the past two weeks! Last week I discovered that the nut on my ukulele snapped just where the E-string is supposed to be grooved at, and I was so devastated! One of my young guitar students wanted to learn how to play Train's "Hey Soul Sister", and of course you need to play that song on the ukulele because it just doesn't quite cut it on the guitar. Actually the ukulele is not so bad, the nut breakage just means that my first fret is effectively a dead spot. I can still get decent chords out of it as long as I compensate by playing one fret higher on the E-string. But nah, too much trouble and the guitar student just have to stick with her guitar and not the ukulele.

Then just now, because I will be doing the Good Friday service tomorrow night, I decided to give my guitar fresh strings cos the previous set of strings didn't last as long as Matthew and I thought it would last. But trouble always comes right after the other, I discovered that one of the bridge pins was semi-broken and just about hanging there for its dear life. Obviously I cannot just steal bridge pins from the other guitars, although I was very very tempted to just steal the pins from Tyrus' guitar hahaha. He will never let me hear the end of it if I do! But anyway I decided I will take the risk and reused my semi-broken. Then while tightening and tuning the new strings up, the lowest E-string snapped! You have to understand that I have never ever snapped any guitar strings before. Not when I am stringing guitars. Not when I am playing too. Can't believe my misfortune! Have no choice but to reuse the old string.

And in the midst of all of these, Joanna and Tyrus put me in a fix with one of the most difficult questions I have to answer. So they started nonchalantly asking if I ever contemplated leaving Salvation Army for another church, and of course I cannot wriggle my way out of that one. Heh the last serious decision for this matter was in the beginning of 2010, where I was really very close to just dropping it all and move on elsewhere, but I stayed on. So when your cell members ask you these sort of questions and then they ask why, the most horrifying thing you can tell them is because THEY are the reason I want to leave hahaha. Then they started talking about how they will get to my age one day and then bemoan their old age, or when I'm 50 and they're around 40s and we all have children and we are normal friends. Hahaha cannot imagine, cos I still think they are so itty bitty! Okay this will come back to bite me. I don't think they will read this. 

This is sort of a continuation from the two posts previously, with regards to the Good Friday and Easter activities for this year! It's probably the biggest and most exciting one that I've had all these years. The corps officers, and with the help of several groups of people, they've transformed the auditorium into an exhibition of different displays related to Good Friday and Easter. Major Paul nailed a huge cross himself, and there's an actual empty "tomb", and various artworks, and the weapons used in the torture of Christ etc etc.

Probably the most intriguing display that really ignited my thoughts was the Holy Communion practice. I remember a while back I was questioning quite a few Salvation Army officers about that subject, largely because it was triggered by Sarah haha. I've been to other churches and on the occasional services they partake Communion, I merely just sit or kneel without taking the wafer/bread or juice/alcohol. But I have tasted the wafer out of curiosity before heh, growing up in SA without really knowing much about Communion until I'm much older haha.

Do take the time to walk through the displays this week!

Now that we are in April, I just wanna pay tribute to all the concerts and performances that I managed to catch in March! It's almost as if March was a culture month, because I was at one or two art galleries, then I caught the Wicked musical, and then was at Esplanade for a guitar concert by Tama high school from Japan, then the most recent being at St Margaret's band concert because Joanna was performing.

I think the best experience would easily be Wicked, because I was really captivated from beginning to end and everything was just very well executed, with a great story and all. Haha really impressed! Think I seldom spend money and time to catch all these things, so when I do I am mostly wowed. Haha hard not to be wowed when you are already sitting in a grand auditorium!

Next up is Andy Warhol!! Anyone has books or notes on Warhol, please lend me! Need to write like 3000 words on him.

Past few weeks I've been involved with the Good Friday/Easter weekend preparations in one way or another, some are intentional and some are just unwittingly incidental haha. First up and the biggest involvement is I am leading worship on SAY service on Friday night for youth! Which is a role that is fast becoming a fixture haha, cos this year will be the third consecutive year I am leading worship on Good Fri! I don't think Min Jie or anyone really set out to put me in for all three years haha it kinda just happened to be. But part of the stress means not being tempted to just repeat all my songs from the previous years and to come up with something fresh and something new to say. 

The other lesser involvements include painting of banners and setting them up (together with lights) in our hall! We've had a new corps officer since the start of the year and Major Paul had this really grand idea of a walk-in exhibition and activities for an entire week. The youths were then commissioned to do three "graffiti" banners which will be hung up in the hall.

This is what my group did after two weeks!

And this picture was the trial experimentation of what it might look like after we adjusted the lighting positions. There will be an actual banner raising this Friday I think!

Took to the stage again to lead worship this morning, and this blog is fast becoming a whinge about how I am leading worship a lot lesser now and blah blah blah. Haha but it's true! The number of times I've been onstage last year and possibly this year too has been a lot less than half of what I used to put in, and I am just thankful there's still something for me to do.

Anyway, I think I put this morning down to nerves and mishaps, because on first strum I realized my guitar's horribly out of tune, which makes this like the third occasion my guitar's out of tune right before worship begins. So anyway I had to tune it midway, and I forgot chords and some of the song arrangements, but the team was great in covering up. AND I SNAPPED A NEW PICK! I only got the pick like a few weeks ago, this is the first time I'm using it, and I was just telling everyone that I think this pick feels real good and all, then halfway through it just broke into two. But I am grateful for the way it turned out, it is all of God and not me.

Other news, I barely scrapped through my two mid-term literature tests last week. To be very honest I didn't prepare much, because one was open-book and the other was some visual appreciation response test. My consolation was that if I studied hard I wouldn't have made a lot of sense also. But there was a lit presentation too, and my topic was gender and space. Which is what we talk about all the time in GEOG classes, not as much in the LIT classes. So you can imagine, I laid it down with such aplomb that my prof had a special praise reserved for me after the class. Haha that was at least one good thing that happened, and I'm glad I'm not a lit major. I enjoy studying literature and I love the concepts, but I cannot write essays from it. 

This might just be my craziest week so far this year. I have two mid-term tests coming up on Thursday and Friday, and I am not doing the best preparations for both of them. I don't have much of a choice actually, because I already am taking lesser modules this term. Studying isn't as agonizing if I don't have all these tests getting in my way. 

Was out with Joanna today at this quaint cafe near Thomson Plaza. It's truth that we never see eye to eye ever, she has a million different perspectives that run contrary to mine and she's always annoyed by me. And it's likewise for me too heh. But for once, this short outing actually made my day, for the lazy reprieve away from work, strolling along the neighborhood and conversations over coffee. I've come to conclusions that she is totally asexual hahaha. 

Can't quite imagine how much of this I would be doing any longer. 

Sometimes I look back at all the times I have tried to connect in some ways with the little girls in my cells, I am really amazed at how I am still barely hanging there after so many noted failed attempts. Haha okay I really must admit that it takes me all the patience and the constant goofing around just to understand somehow what goes on in the mind of a young teenage girl. With guys it's always a lot easier, possibly because I was at that age before and I know exactly how it feels like, but for girls it seems like I take an eternity to learn, and then each girl is different from the other, and it's just such a gargantuan effort to remember a million things I ought or ought not to do.

And I can safely say that all the books or magazines or articles I've read before does not at all prepare me for what really happens. Yes, that's right, I actually spend time reading about how to reach out to teenage girls, because that was what I was thrust into when I first began lower secondary school cell leading, and nothing in the books told me what to do when they start crying or having opposing views (only to change them years later hahaha) or just having unique perspectives. How in the world am I supposed to hang out with the girls without being a total perv hahaha go shopping with them???

I know she's reading this, but the mentee is back and I am so relieved. Not that she does a lot la hahaha, but then occasionally I really have no idea what to do with the girls in my cell and I'll be like Jolene please settle this, and voila everyone's happy. Maybe same-gender cells function precisely in this way, but I've always been a firm believer of the opposite gender playing important roles shaping the person you are. Haha I'm the kind of person that will encourage people to go date around and get into relationships and experience break ups for themselves, okay that's another blog topic for another time.

Okay, patience.   

It's 5.15pm now, and I think today is the best Monday school day ever for the past few months. There was quite a bit of rain this morning I think, and usually it would have been a tremendous drag trying to haul myself out of bed. And usually my Monday classes start at 2pm, so I have quite a long sleep-in, but I had to be at school at 12pm today, and surprisingly that made my day. Okay la maybe because it's a good hair day too. HAHA. And, I haven't received a single email from any of the frequent spamming departments. For a Monday, I think this is rare. Maybe all the admins are busy clearing email backlogs from over the weekend. Or maybe I really succeeded in my solo quest of trying to get them to unsubscribe me. Whatever it is, it's a good Monday.

And, last night I was at airport with a few of the young ones meeting Jolene (and Joe Yong) from their return from Shanghai! This fully makes up for not being there when she first left 6 months ago, and it's good to see the mentee again after she ran away.

Okay that's it, printing readings that are more than 2 weeks old. 

Not in the best frame of mind because of severe lack of sleep. Submitted a 1000-word review last night (or should I say morning) at 6am, and I'm reeling from the repercussions of pulling an all-nighter. Okay technically no la because I still managed to get some sleep in the end. It's my first assignment submission for this term, which is quite rare because it's more than midway through the term already. Haha a 1000-word is a no brainer for a wordy nag like me, I have no problems meeting the word limit.

Anyway speaking about numbers, I've just hit my 8,888th tweet on Twitter today! To celebrate, I've invited the first three respondents to take a picture of themselves with the number 8888, and just for participation alone they'll get a free drink! I'm too lazy to compile the photos that I've received here, but they were hilarious and ingenious, thanks to Shi Hui and Lynn and Amelia for indulging my crazy gimmick! I kinda figured that I need to do giveaways like these more often, because it makes people happy and it gives me a chance to spend money too! As it is now I have an idea for the 10,000th tweet and can't wait for my tweet count to reach there asap! At the rate I'm going it will probably take another two months haha.

Okay bed I need. 

I think whenever it's my turn to take the Sec 1 and 2 Sunday classes, I tend to go wild on the topics because first thing is that I'm not bound by what we are doing on Friday youth services, and second thing is that the other adult auntie uncle teachers don't really sit in much so that means the discussions get way more crazy. So last week was honouring your parents, and it was pretty much the best setting to air your dirtiest laundry about our parents. I love my parents a lot, and I'm sure all the youths do too, but every teen I know has just about something to say about the irritating things that their parents do that bugs them. And everything was just "mum keeps nagging" or "dad keeps scolding", with a strict confidentiality clause that we won't go telling on each other's parents after that haha, but was good in the end to tie it up with honouring and respecting them.

Today's even more wacko, because we finished last week's topic already, so I did something that I really wanted to address for a long time. We were talking about swearing and vulgarities, and I think it was probably the only time they didn't have to watch their language and we could be a bit liberal with the f- and s-words haha. There was this long list of words that we all deem are not so appropriate at certain settings, and I've got all the usual swear words up there (with the Hokkien varieties), but then Rebecca, bless her, came up with "meow" and "gee mama" as her worst swear/cuss words ever. Hahahaha okay next time I am tempted to curse in exclamation, I'm so gonna just meow out loud to myself, and it's going to be so ridiculous that the intention of it all is all lost, haha precisely the point. 

And, the triumph of it all. Because I missed sermon since I was at class, and for some reason everyone I met after service kept referring to what was preached during service which I have no clue about, frustrating max! I managed to obtain the sermon notes which my corps officer left behind on the pulpit, I'm assuming they don't really need it anymore because they kept their Bibles but didn't bring along the notes, for the past few weeks too. I'm like vociferously going through it to update myself, and it's great their notes are actual essay speech too. And most of the time I come across Col. Bob's notes too, if he's preaching, because he leaves a copy in the control room for the slides projection, and his notes are great too as it's all full sentences. Would be very different if it were my own notes; it will all be one-word point form. Hahaha fastest way to recap sermons, just keep the notes they leave behind.