peekaboo. i'm back!:D been busy. haha.
had sisters' day on tues! hahaha:D we played badminton at this place near maurise's house. me and joce were late 'cos we went for auditions for the easter drama main lead (:P) earlier in the day. needless to say, we didn't get in:D hahaha:D
anyway, badminton:D badminton cum soccer. hahaha. tiring. we sang songs while playing badminton. quite interesting. then we went up to maurise's house to watch movies! watched 'the stepford wives' (which i thought was... not very nice. except tt the last part came as quite a shock) and 'kungfu hustle' (which was. well. not very nice in the front either. until the last part:D) and by that time, it was quite late. ate dinner, and played with maurise's cousins...both aged 5. hahha:D hyper boys.
then adeline came and we celebrated her birthday with her:D everyone wore a pink item tt day 'cos adeline loves pink. hahaa. prayed a prayer of blessing for her as well:)and we watched 1/2 yuan2 fen4 together:D haha. then yup. went home. gwen drove kim to somewhere near her house, me and joyce to eunos area and huiting back home:D
then wed! wed we had east district event! hahaa. super cool:D location was pasir ris park..
had station games and what-nots. kept running around in the mazes. nearly couldn't find my way out. hahaa:) we had to eat this sandwich thing at cheng's station...it tasted quite okay but the ingredients inside were that of a very odd combi. wasabi with onions with bittergourd:P how friendly.
jason and bingliang's station was slippery:P
yeah. then had mega wargame after tt. lots of water bombs flying around..haha. was in the purple team. thought we bombed a lot of people and converted them to the purple team but it turns out that all our pple got snatched away after that. so sad! anyway, the game ended up in a lot of people getting drenched, not because of water bombs, but because pple filled up buckets of water and poured it over people. as an unfortunate victim myself (3 times!O_o), i understand how gwen feels when sengkim poured the water all over her.
yeah. really enjoyed myself tt day. my team was called spongebob and our really stupid cheer was that of 'i say you say we say sponge, ooh bobbobbob, ooh bobbobbob, ooh bobbobbob, spongebob!:P' we had this small boy called jackie (in p2 this yr) in our team as well. haha. he's an important asset during the mega game. no one dares to hit him 'cos he's young:D hehehe.
real nice to have the whole district gathered together:D
and planetshakers concert yesterday! haha. i think we rocked the whole tent thing we were in. most prob the pple at wildwildwet could hear us as well:) hahaha.
it's good to be crazy once in a while. i think most pple forgot how it feels like to just let loose and enjoy each other's company in a fun and innocent way:)

i am encouraged:D
hahaha.
i went on msn, and suddenly, jane (from nanyang..haha. not our jane...another jane from nanyang.. i can't remember her surname..but i remember i was close to her for a short period of time..even when to her house and all hahaa) sent me a msg on msn and asked me which church i'm going to. hahaha:D
so cool!
and she's going for the planetshakers concert too! on friday!
yeah
hope that i'll see her:D
hey steph! u shld know her. she was waiting at the airport for toro and energy when u were waiting at the airport for them! hahaha. as in, when they came over to singapore.
hahaha:D
yeah:D

people keep asking me if i'm alright. i'm alright! hahaha:D
it's His strength which held me up after i got my results, His love which kept me going, His presence which comforted me... His purpose which kept me going, and His people who allowed me to think rationally.
and i thank God for the people who were around me as well. thank you. all of your presence meant a lot to me as well.

i'm not worried about my results. hahaha:D i feel normal 'cos
1) i know my future is in God's hands.
2) i'm more worried for my girls and my sister. hahaha.
hahaha!

"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'" (John 14:6, niv).

Speaking of dreams, rock-climbing definitely is not a dream of mine. I've seen rock climbers scale the face of El Capitan in the magnificent Yosemite National Park in California. The thought of my doing what they are doing terrifies me. What if they fell? It can happen. Imagine the terror that rock climber, Lynn Hill, experienced in May of 1989 when scaling a cliff face in France. As she reached the top of a 72-foot
ledge, she leaned back into her harness to take a restand her rope didn't hold. She hurtled backwards into space. Amazingly, she survived the fall. She shared this in her autobiography, Climbing Free.

Hill was an experienced rock climber and relied fully on her equipment. Her experience, however, is a powerful reminder of the dangers of putting our trust into something that can fail.

Think of all the people who held stock in companies such as Enron. Thousands thought their future was secure but lost all their retirement funds. Same with me, I put my trust in my broker and he stole my entire retirement fund. True, we can't go through life being suspicious of everyone, but having said that we do need to be wise and careful about who and what we put our trust in.

In some situations where we have been let down, we can recover, but when it comes to putting our trust in planning for eternity, there's no recovery if we place our trust in the wrong religion or in a false "god."

Many religious leaders besides Jesus Christ have and still claim that their religion is the true way to God. But Jesus was emphatic in stating that henot religion nor Christianitybut that HE was the only way to God. "No one," he said, "comes to God except through me!"

While Jesus Christ is not the only religious leader who claimed to be God, he is the only one who ever convinced a great portion of the world that he is. He is also the only leader who ever claimed that he would rise from death. And according to historical evidence, he did. He was seen by the women who visited his tomb and found it empty, by the disciples, and by more than 500 other witnesses.

Christ's resurrection was also recorded by Josephus, the Jewish historian, in his Antiquities. Josephus was a Jew writing to satisfy the Romans, so his report of
Christ's resurrection would not have pleased the Romans at all. He would not have included it had he not believed it to be true.

Had there been any other way to God apart from Jesus Christ, why would Jesus, the Son of God, have come to earth as a baby to identify with mankind and then die in our place to pay the penalty for all our sins on the cruel Roman cross?

So be extremely wise and careful in what religion and in whom you put your trust when it comes to life after death. Your life depends on it. Eternity is forever!

--
haha. i just read the book of Josephus..very interesting:D he's quite sarcastic.

yeah:D
had a great time with some of my cg pple today:D hahaha. we went swimming at val's uncle's house. they're super lame.
went to the jacuzzi and we were playing around with the slides and all..haha. it's really cool 'cos once u press a button, water will just pour out from everywhere (literally!). and there was this super slippery slide...hahaha:D we formed a chain and went down the slide altogether. yeah:D oh! there was this bubble pool thing which looked a bit like lava bubbling away except it's water. hahaha:D think we just went mad today. hahaha:D me and huiqi and peixin and kim and valerie:D
and we went to the sauna after tt. super hot. gosh.
hahaha:D
yeah:D
did u know last time everyone thought claudia would end up with pastor lawrence? i never knew that!:D so amusing. anyway. no link. haha.

i had a most interesting night. hahaha:D
was in tamp late at night and hurried to catch the train to go home... was reaching the mrt when i saw the a train leave the station and i was quite comforted 'cos i was thinking to myself that there are still trains available.
interestingly, i went into the station and was about to tap my card when i heard the announcement of 'the last train to boon lay has just left the station. there will be no more trains to boon lay. there will only be trains to pasir ris.' and i was like O_o. intriguing. hahaha.
1st thing to thank God for... that i actually heard the announcement before i went past the gates.
so, fearing that i won't be able to go home, i decided to go and withdraw money. then rushed to the interchange. didn't take 31 'cos it just left so decided to take 28 instead. yepz.
then i saw maurise at the next bus stop! gosh. hahaha:D she and i were like. hey!:D hahaha. so funny! turns out that maurise just missed 293 'cos the bus driver didn't see her. hhaha. poor maurise. but thank God! so warm to see someone u know in the middle of the night:D hahaha:)
yeah:)
u know wat. i can't help thinking how real God is in my life. in every believer's life. was talking to a sister..and i can't help being firstly, shocked at what she went through, secondly, amazed at the transformation that God has done for her, thirdly, at rest that she's not at peace because of God in her life. i think what happened to her was really.. i dunno. it's just something that won't happen to most pple. yes. and even day by day, with God in my life, i have that purpose of why i'm living each day the way it is, what i'm living each day for. for an eternal purpose which doesn't change due to circumstances, nor emotions. or the season. nor the time of the year.
gosh.

dear all.
i am in full awareness that results are coming out. hahaha.
i am also in full awareness that my birthday is coming soon. yeah!
if you are not in full awareness, it's time u are. okayokay. kidding kidding.
i know you all are sweet people who'll prob find a way to pass me something, but all i wanna say is that what i really want for a birthday (for every year in fact) is to see YOU in service WITH ME.
so yepz:)
that's all i wanna say.
goodbye:)

yeah. interesting few days. hahaha:D
went to relief teach on tues. actually just babysitted all of them:D watched pearl harbour (watched for 2 hours++ before realising that it's pearl harbour. heheh) and children of heaven:) was with this girl called yushan, previously from tj:) hahaha. then went back to vj:D quite fun to go back to vj. hahaha:D
then on wed. shepherding with gwenie. interesting.
then went to changi to find huiqi and maurise, then went to find huiting at her mum's shop:) she's very helpful! hahaa. helped me pick out a present for sharline. yeah:) and then went to huiqi's house with sengkim. yeah! to prepare for cg.
cg was exciting:D we had normal cg. then we had lao yu sheng:D hahaha. poor sasha (huiqi's dog). she kept putting her nose to the table and whining. ah wellus.
then we had steamboat. and watched white chicks in the meantime. ah wellus. hahaha:D funny show ah. lots of crude humour though.
yeah.
then met with maurise today. hehee. we went to the staff canteen at changi. now i know where it is:D
then went to somerset for sakae sushi buffet with sharline and kaimei:D hahaha. sharline liked the present (whew:D)...hahaa. ordered lots of fried stuff. *grInz* very full. we talked a lot about students and teaching and what-nots. eh. heard some stuff which kinda made me disappointed with nvss. ah well.
then we walked to far east. kaimei had to go off for walk, so yeah, left sharline and me.
saw sze and her cousin on the way there. hahaha. actually she saw me first. i didn't even see her. wellus:)
yeah. walked around far east to find the alteration shops, then looked around. hmm. window shopping basically. actually not even window shopping, we just went past the shops and took a glance at each of them. feeling a little tired. sharline suggested that it's 'cos we ate too much and all of the blood went to our stomachs. yeah. both of us love bio. hahaha:D
then we went to tangs to check out the skirt that she liked. wellus. tangs had a revamp and i hardly recognise the place anymore. so yeah.
was going home when i realised that my pass was with kaimei. hahaa. disastrous. went to borders to find her but found out that she was gone. tried looking around for an organiser but they were all quite ex. yeah.
went to isetan to find kaimei. hahaha. finally got my pass back:) yeah.
came back to toa payoh and decided i should get a new pouch or something but can't find a shop with pouches...so i decided to go to popular and purchase my organiser first.
ended up applying for student membership for three years ($15) and spending half of a day's relief teaching salary on stuff to help me organise my room and life. yeah. basically got the post-it sticky board thing and got my organiser and got lots of files. yeah.
tired of seeing mess in my room. so yeah. it shall be tidy from now on:)
i'm actually kinda amazed at how God changed my attitude towards tidiness. like. just last year i dun even care if my room is messy or not, as long as i can find my notes and have a space to do my work. yeah.

"When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false" (John 1:47, niv)

I recently read how Ray, an energetic three-year-old, liked to play being Superman. Each morning he would have his mother pin a bath towel to the back of his T-shirt and off he'd go imagining he was wearing the magic blue and red cape pretending he was Superman. In his mind he came to believe he was Superman.

Then came kindergarten. When the teacher asked Ray for his name, he replied, "Superman." Trying to hide her amusement she asked again, "I need to know your real name." Again he replied in all sincerity, "Superman."

The teacher, still trying to hide her amusement, got down to Ray's level and, looking squarely into Ray's eyes, said quite firmly, "I need to know your real name. What is it?"

Little Ray looked around the room, making sure no one was listening and, leaning close to the teacher, whispered in her ear, "I'm Clark Kent."

We smile at a child's innocence and make-believe world. But in reality some of us, afraid of being known for who we truly are, have hidden behind a pretend-mask for so long that we have come to believe that the role we play is the real us. In doing so we fail to realize that the loneliness we struggle with is caused by our living in a make-believe world neither knowing who we are or being known for who we are. For we can only ever be loved and connected to other loving people to the degree that we are known. Masks can't be loved. Only real people can be really loved.

Let's learn to be like Nathanial about whom Jesus said when he first met him, "Here comes a man in whom there is nothing false." Or in our language, "Here comes an honest man."

hahahha:D
today is valentine's day. and i spent half of the day in dreamland:D wonderful:D
yeahyeah:D
watched the opening ceremony for grammys just now. super cool! as in. i love the last part when they fused all the different songs together. thought it was great. hahaha:D yeahyeah.
if it's not for the fact that i've gotta wake up early tomorrow, i would continue watching it. hahahaha:D

saw guan yesterday before prayer meet and i was like thinking it's quite nice to have your former classmates in the same church as you 'cos you'll see them quite regularly and it'll feel as if we've never really left each other 'cos we'll still see each other and catch up on what's going on in our lives. and knowing that we have the same vision and all, it bonds the friendship even deeper:)
yeah. anyway, had mtv remix screening today! haha. super funny when we watch it. yeah:D and had a nice time talking to jits too.
i tell u ah. it's hard to find little golden hearts hidden ALL OVER RC. there was this elusive heart in the washing machine that was like hiding from me and jits and showed itself clear to joycelyn. grrr.
hahhaa. wellus. had fun nevertheless. and we ate lunch together and we watched tv together and we played daidee and bridge and daidee and bridge. hahaha:) poor rc is a bit messy after we vacated though.
yeah. then walked around tamp mall looking for stuff. yes. important stuff. whereby after that me and jits took the train home.
hahaha. this guy who was stunk of liquer sat down beside me and started speaking to himself O_o jits was like thinking he's mad and i'm thinking he's drunk and both of us decided to move.
then the guy actually came to around the same place we finally sat down at. hahha. but he was standing, so didn't really bother us. then he started to irritate the people around him, talk a lot of nonsense, point here, point there. i told jits that we should just sleep. hahaa. so that he won't come and bother us. anyway, i didn't see this, but jits saw...
the guy held up a beer bottle and actually wanted to drink it in the mrt train... there was this family across him. and the father of the family stood up and showed him his wallet. hahaha:D
that doesn't sound very intimidating, does it? but the thing is...there was a police i.d in the wallet, and there was a sign saying no drinking on the wall of the train and the guy wasn't really scared till the father picked up his phone and called someone, then the guy who was drunk picked up his stuff and moved off.
wellus.
interesting. hahaha.

i think i'm going to puke from eating too much new year stuff. thoroughly sick of them now. hahaha:D don't get them near me!
yeah:D
yesterday was chu yi. and they were so slow in coming to my house i fell asleep waiting for them and woke up after everyone arrived and started knocking on my door. hahaha.
yeah. my nephews came. my niece came. my cousin came. my cousin's wife didn't come. hahaha. turns out that keming knows michael. ah. intriguing. maybe they're in the same platoon? hmm. michael doesn't seem to know him. ahhh wellus. hahaha.nevermind about it.
great. now michael's platoon has a eugene that knows both me and jits. a eugene ho or eugene chua. hahahaha. funny. i dunno anyone called eugene ho or eugene chua. haha. not eugene. yupei! hahaha. gosh. the world is small.
yeah:D
today is chu er. and today is a sleepy day 'cos i finished reading a book at 4am! hahaha. and sleep was scarce. actually not very scarce..just tt i think sleeping so 'early' kinda threw my body clock out of balance.
yeah. visited my aunt (paternal side)...she moved house 'cos of a long story. hehe. anyway, i like her new house better! smaller but cosier. yeah:D got to know my nieces' names. and then visited my aunt too! (materal side. haha) and played with my niece. we played mahjong. muahahhaa. hahaha.
yeah well. u'll realise i dun seem to have cousins playing with me. ALL of my cousins (except one from the maternal side who's decided not to ever marry) ARE MARRIED. gosh.sure makes you feel young, for once.

happy new year to all! hahaha.
i do dislike new year eves. all the cleaning up and what-nots. and i'm still stuck in my room sneezing my head off, trying to clean up my mess (made messier since the start of cleaning up) and being frustrated at the various furniture settled in my room, wishing i can throw everything up and redecorate the room again. hahaha.
i've settled for a change in look. yeah. the computer table is now MINE.
hahaha.

stolen from the gepaa website:

According to experts, most people have either a "dog" personality or a "cat" personality, although a small number fall under the "others" category. This is how it works: think of the animal you would most like to have if you could have only one pet. Then think of the animal you would choose if you were allowed a second pet - this could be the same as the first. The first animal represents one's own personality and the second, that of one's spouse or soulmate. So, for example, someone who chooses Cat for the first animal and Dog for the second animal is compatible with someone who chooses Dog first and Cat second.

At a corporate team-building retreat, the trainer posed the personality question to my unwitting colleague. Being a fish lover, he chose the arrowana as his preferred pet. Asked for his second choice, he pondered for a moment. "Perhaps a grasshopper," he finally said. "It would make good fodder for the arrowana".
---
haha.

hahah. guess where i am?
ah well. i'm in the staff room of north vista. again. marking books.
so sad. i dun get any salary for today...hahaha...but if i dun mark the books right, then the new teacher would have to mark the books...and she'll most prob kill me. hahaa. had to scold the class for her just now. so strange.
wellus.

in case some pple don't know
i'm no longer a teacher. hahaa. yvonne happily informed me after all my classes on friday and said that a new teacher's coming in... gee. so friendly. never inform me beforehand.
yeah. shall not type out the details here any more. cried a couple of times. one of my students cried, which kinda surprised me actually..but quite touching..and my guy students were just there... i still miss them.

There can be no such things as an atheist. This is why: Let's imagine that you are a professing atheist. Here are two questions for you to answer: First, do you know the combined weight of all the sand on all the beaches of Hawaii? We can safely assume that you don't. This brings us to the second question: Do you know how many hairs are on the back of a fully-grown male Tibetan yak? Probably not. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that there are some things that you don't know. It is important to ask these questions because there are some people who think they know everything.

Let's say that you know an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. To know 100 percent, you would have to know everything. There wouldn't be a rock in the universe that you would not be intimately familiar with, or a grain of sand that you would not be aware of. You would know everything that has happened in history, from that which is common knowledge to the minor details of the secret love life of Napoleon's great-grandmother's black cat's fleas. You would know every hair of every head, and every thought of every heart. All history would be laid out before you, because you would be omniscient (all-knowing).

Bear in mind that one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Thomas Edison, said, "We do not know a millionth of one percent about anything." Let me repeat: Let's say that you have an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. Would it be possible, in the ninety-nine percent of the knowledge that you haven't yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove the existence of God? If you are reasonable, you will be forced to admit that it is possible. Somewhere, in the knowledge you haven't yet discovered, there could be enough evidence to prove that God does exist.

Let's look at the same thought from another angle. If I were to make an absolute statement such as, "There is no gold in China," what is needed for that statement to be proven true? I need absolute or total knowledge. I need to have information that there is no gold in any rock, in any river, in the ground, in any store, in any ring, or in any mouth (gold filling) in China. If there is one speck of gold in China, then my statement is false and I have no basis for it. I need absolute knowledge before I can make an absolute statement of that nature. Conversely, for me to say, "There is gold in China," I don't need to have all knowledge. I just need to have seen a speck of gold in the country, and the statement is then true.

To say categorically, "There is no God," is to make an absolute statement. For the statement to be true, I must know for certain that there is no God in the entire universe. No human being has all knowledge. Therefore, none of us is able to truthfully make this assertion.

If you insist upon disbelief in God, what you must say is, "Having the limited knowledge I have at present, I believe that there is no God." Owing to a lack of knowledge on your part, you don't know if God exists. So, in the strict sense of the word, you cannot be an atheist. The only true qualifier for the title is the One who has absolute knowledge, and why on earth would God want to deny His own existence?

The professing atheist is what is commonly known as an "agnostic" - one who claims he "doesn't know" if God exists. It is interesting to note that the Latin equivalent for the Greek word is "ignoramus." The Bible tells us that this ignorance is "willful" (Psalm 10:4). It's not that a person can't find God, but that he won't. It has been rightly said that the "atheist" can't find God for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman. He knows that if he admits that there is a God, he is admitting that he is ultimately responsible to Him. This is not a pleasant thought for some.

It is said that Mussolini (the Italian dictator), once stood on a pinnacle and cried, "God, if you are there, strike me dead!" When God didn't immediately bow to his dictates, Mussolini then concluded that there was no God. However, his prayer was answered some time later.

yeah:D emotions service today. hahah.
i missed the first part (last week) 'cos of food poisoning...but today was GREAT. hahaha:D love the keyboard collaboration (really very awe-inspiring), didn't quite understand the drums (but the skills were marvellous hahaa:D) and i think bao wei singing on stage was super amusing!:D
dun ask me why. maybe it's the hairstyle.
hahaha
and we had audience participation:D everyone had shakers. super amusing:D
yeah:D yesh:D
oh yes! we have Hope brisbane people joining us!:D they speak with an accent:D friendly pple too:D and i was like thinking. surprisingly huiyu still speaks without an accent after one yr down under:D haha.
and apparently the food in aus is like 3-4 times more expensive than the food in singapore.
gosh. if i'm in aus, i'll starve to death. hahaha.

just when i'm feeling a bit tired,
a bit moody,
a bit downcast,
a bit of looking to myself instead of God...

my dear faithful God. what can i say? You who makes the heavens and the earth, who set the stars in their place, who crafted every of the mountains and moulded every of our face...
You did Your work in her heart...
and changed it. for You. to love You more.
a big decision. but nevertheless, the words were said.
thank You Lord.
You are faithful.
the news lightened my heart. God is moving in the hearts in ea3!

third service in march! here we come!