Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Sun 29 Jul
My fiancee went to the first service so that she could go down to our new place with her mum to start some cleaning up first. According to schedule, the parquet should have been done, and most of the things we noted as flaws fixed. However, to my fiancee's shock, there was a whole list of problems (minor though they may be) found, and the parquet was not done!
I headed down after service and cell to see the state of things, and was quite shocked. However, my interior designer explained that the parquet was incomplete because someone had complained about the noise on Sat, and the workers had to stop. We are still wondering which neighbour it was, but we have a faint idea already. The rest of the items that were newly discovered were due to the sharp eye of my fiancee's mum. I actually felt quite bad about it because my interior designer's wife was in hospital due to premature contractions, but he said something that I thought was quite wise and calm for any person handling such an emergency. He said that he isn't a doctor, and there's nothing he really can do to directly help his wife. But what he can do is to make sure the houses he is working on gets fixed up and done up properly, which is within his power and expertise.
Mon 30 Jul
I had a super long day at school today. Now Mon will overtake Thu as the longest day because now I will have two remedial sessions at the end of day that will stretch till at least 5.30 pm. I don't mind it since I know it will benefit the students, but today's attendance was a miserable 3 out of a theoretical 9 for various reasons. Sigh. I was wiped out by the time I went home and had dinner.
I had finally watched Angel Heart to the latest available episode of 33, but it seemed like there had been no new releases for a while. The anime was good, managing to be touching at several moments though the premise was still a slight stretch of reality in that a person after a heart transplant receives the memories (and it seems like the spirit) of the donor. Now I am on a new anime series that has finished season 1, but I'm not sure if there will be a season 2 until I watch the last episode. The said anime is Code Geass, whose premise is every bit as compelling as Death Note. In Code Geass, the protagonist is someone who wants to liberate Japan from Britain's rule (the background is that Britain got so powerful that it captured half the world's territories), and receives the power of the Geas, in which he is able to compel any person to do his bidding with one command when he makes eye contact, but apparently only once per person. His morality is that in which he believes that he can create a new world of peace by overthrowing the superpower and defeating the empire, through whatever means, which is totally reminiscent of Raito (or Light) in Death Note, also receiving a supernatural power. It is another exciting battle of wits style of show except that it has...mecha! What more can one ask for?
Tue 31 Jul
I managed to clear some work today during my free period. I'm supposed to plan the layout for new printers for the staffroom, so I need to have the existing layout of the staffroom right? I got a softcopy, only to find that it was ridiculously backdated. Some names in there were from before I joined TJC. I realized that about half that piece of paper was obsolete, so I took it upon myself to update all the staff in both staffrooms. The softcopy was on Word document no less, and I thought it would be much better to do a nice Excel version, so I did. I think I define this as my kind of professionalism.
After my lessons, I went off almost right away with my fiancee to meet our interior designer. Ken drove us down to take a look at the house. He wanted to show us that all the things that we found issues with had been rectified or were about to be fixed. Now that the parquet is done up and most of the flaws with the painting are fixed, the place looks great. Finally, it looks like I can move in soon.
When we were done with that, we took a walk to Elias Mall to grab some food, before walking over to Meridian Junior College for our Masters' tutorial. It wasn't particularly far, but not very near either. This has to be one of the most hectic modules ever. Not only are we graded 1% for class discussions per tutorial, we are graded 2% for handing up what we prepare for tutorials as well. Goodness, we are treated as kids practically. Other than that, the lessons involved a lot of group discussion, and activities, which proved engaging, but nothing to look forward to considering the lesson is at 6 to 9 pm after a long day at school. I can't wait to move into my new place, then I will be very near home every time there is a tutorial. Haha.
My fiancee went to the first service so that she could go down to our new place with her mum to start some cleaning up first. According to schedule, the parquet should have been done, and most of the things we noted as flaws fixed. However, to my fiancee's shock, there was a whole list of problems (minor though they may be) found, and the parquet was not done!
I headed down after service and cell to see the state of things, and was quite shocked. However, my interior designer explained that the parquet was incomplete because someone had complained about the noise on Sat, and the workers had to stop. We are still wondering which neighbour it was, but we have a faint idea already. The rest of the items that were newly discovered were due to the sharp eye of my fiancee's mum. I actually felt quite bad about it because my interior designer's wife was in hospital due to premature contractions, but he said something that I thought was quite wise and calm for any person handling such an emergency. He said that he isn't a doctor, and there's nothing he really can do to directly help his wife. But what he can do is to make sure the houses he is working on gets fixed up and done up properly, which is within his power and expertise.
Mon 30 Jul
I had a super long day at school today. Now Mon will overtake Thu as the longest day because now I will have two remedial sessions at the end of day that will stretch till at least 5.30 pm. I don't mind it since I know it will benefit the students, but today's attendance was a miserable 3 out of a theoretical 9 for various reasons. Sigh. I was wiped out by the time I went home and had dinner.
I had finally watched Angel Heart to the latest available episode of 33, but it seemed like there had been no new releases for a while. The anime was good, managing to be touching at several moments though the premise was still a slight stretch of reality in that a person after a heart transplant receives the memories (and it seems like the spirit) of the donor. Now I am on a new anime series that has finished season 1, but I'm not sure if there will be a season 2 until I watch the last episode. The said anime is Code Geass, whose premise is every bit as compelling as Death Note. In Code Geass, the protagonist is someone who wants to liberate Japan from Britain's rule (the background is that Britain got so powerful that it captured half the world's territories), and receives the power of the Geas, in which he is able to compel any person to do his bidding with one command when he makes eye contact, but apparently only once per person. His morality is that in which he believes that he can create a new world of peace by overthrowing the superpower and defeating the empire, through whatever means, which is totally reminiscent of Raito (or Light) in Death Note, also receiving a supernatural power. It is another exciting battle of wits style of show except that it has...mecha! What more can one ask for?
Tue 31 Jul
I managed to clear some work today during my free period. I'm supposed to plan the layout for new printers for the staffroom, so I need to have the existing layout of the staffroom right? I got a softcopy, only to find that it was ridiculously backdated. Some names in there were from before I joined TJC. I realized that about half that piece of paper was obsolete, so I took it upon myself to update all the staff in both staffrooms. The softcopy was on Word document no less, and I thought it would be much better to do a nice Excel version, so I did. I think I define this as my kind of professionalism.
After my lessons, I went off almost right away with my fiancee to meet our interior designer. Ken drove us down to take a look at the house. He wanted to show us that all the things that we found issues with had been rectified or were about to be fixed. Now that the parquet is done up and most of the flaws with the painting are fixed, the place looks great. Finally, it looks like I can move in soon.
When we were done with that, we took a walk to Elias Mall to grab some food, before walking over to Meridian Junior College for our Masters' tutorial. It wasn't particularly far, but not very near either. This has to be one of the most hectic modules ever. Not only are we graded 1% for class discussions per tutorial, we are graded 2% for handing up what we prepare for tutorials as well. Goodness, we are treated as kids practically. Other than that, the lessons involved a lot of group discussion, and activities, which proved engaging, but nothing to look forward to considering the lesson is at 6 to 9 pm after a long day at school. I can't wait to move into my new place, then I will be very near home every time there is a tutorial. Haha.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Thu 26 Jul
My usual packed day of the week. In fact, I was so busy that when I went to eat lunch, my free period was technically over, and I wolfed down my chicken rice in 5 min in the canteen as a detour, and still made it to the classroom earlier than some of my students. When I say that students crawl from point to point, I mean every word of it.
After school, I headed down to my new place first, since my fiancee was having remedial lessons, and I was expecting a delivery. I met up with the guy who would be doing the curtains (roller blinds, actually) as well, so that he could assess what was necessary, and the cost. It didn't help that the house has six wall to wall windows, which span about two-thirds of the wall face, and the eventual cost ended up exceeding my estimated budget by $1200. Ouch. Now this puts a big strain on my finances, compounded with the fact that the balcony roof costed more than what was estimated as well, due to HDB's ruling on fireproof material and all (i.e. more expensive stuff). All the kitchen and toilet accessories, like racks and mirrors for instance, were fixed up according to where we specified by the workers, so the house looks quite complete, except for the old parquet flooring that needed reworking. Man, there are so many small costs that really add up when we were furnishing the house. As it is now, we have to shelve the construction of some customized furniture to after we get our bonuses in December.
Fri 27 Jul
It was a packed day in school. I think being away from school, be it medical leave or being on course, is always a bad thing, in the sense that there is always work piled up once you return. I was still clearing some backlock, other than relieving a colleague's class. After lessons, my class was due to take photos for the yearbook. I think this year it was a cool idea to get external vendors to handle the photoshoot. They are particular about pose, and stylizing the shots, and I think the whole thing should turn out nice. I spent the evening at home, in compensation for being out of the house most of the time trying to settle things for the new house.
Sat 28 Jul
I went for the Take The City Walk early in the morning. Originally I wanted to go and clean up the house today, but because the workers are varnishing the parquet, my interior designer said that we shouldn't go up. This year's route was different from previous years, and I actually walked past my own block of flats. I needed to take a piss actually, so it was very tempting to just go home and use the toilet. In the end, I decided to hang on, and finish the walk quickly with my boys. The turnout from my cell was worse than I anticipated. Two of my boys came, which was still alright, except that there was one other boy who said he would come, but didn't respond to phone call or sms. I assumed that he was still sound asleep when I called him at 6 plus am. From my own side, only my cell leader was there, and myself, of course.
I came back home for lunch and a nap before heading over to my fiancee's place to pass her a disc that is necessary for our Masters' course tutorials. We went to buy some odds and ends for the new flat as well, so that we can gradually equip the flat.
My usual packed day of the week. In fact, I was so busy that when I went to eat lunch, my free period was technically over, and I wolfed down my chicken rice in 5 min in the canteen as a detour, and still made it to the classroom earlier than some of my students. When I say that students crawl from point to point, I mean every word of it.
After school, I headed down to my new place first, since my fiancee was having remedial lessons, and I was expecting a delivery. I met up with the guy who would be doing the curtains (roller blinds, actually) as well, so that he could assess what was necessary, and the cost. It didn't help that the house has six wall to wall windows, which span about two-thirds of the wall face, and the eventual cost ended up exceeding my estimated budget by $1200. Ouch. Now this puts a big strain on my finances, compounded with the fact that the balcony roof costed more than what was estimated as well, due to HDB's ruling on fireproof material and all (i.e. more expensive stuff). All the kitchen and toilet accessories, like racks and mirrors for instance, were fixed up according to where we specified by the workers, so the house looks quite complete, except for the old parquet flooring that needed reworking. Man, there are so many small costs that really add up when we were furnishing the house. As it is now, we have to shelve the construction of some customized furniture to after we get our bonuses in December.
Fri 27 Jul
It was a packed day in school. I think being away from school, be it medical leave or being on course, is always a bad thing, in the sense that there is always work piled up once you return. I was still clearing some backlock, other than relieving a colleague's class. After lessons, my class was due to take photos for the yearbook. I think this year it was a cool idea to get external vendors to handle the photoshoot. They are particular about pose, and stylizing the shots, and I think the whole thing should turn out nice. I spent the evening at home, in compensation for being out of the house most of the time trying to settle things for the new house.
Sat 28 Jul
I went for the Take The City Walk early in the morning. Originally I wanted to go and clean up the house today, but because the workers are varnishing the parquet, my interior designer said that we shouldn't go up. This year's route was different from previous years, and I actually walked past my own block of flats. I needed to take a piss actually, so it was very tempting to just go home and use the toilet. In the end, I decided to hang on, and finish the walk quickly with my boys. The turnout from my cell was worse than I anticipated. Two of my boys came, which was still alright, except that there was one other boy who said he would come, but didn't respond to phone call or sms. I assumed that he was still sound asleep when I called him at 6 plus am. From my own side, only my cell leader was there, and myself, of course.
I came back home for lunch and a nap before heading over to my fiancee's place to pass her a disc that is necessary for our Masters' course tutorials. We went to buy some odds and ends for the new flat as well, so that we can gradually equip the flat.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
I returned to school today and discovered that many people just assumed I was sick again, not realizing that I was away on course. It seemed like those people must have thought I hadn't recovered from my previous infection then. I actually had a little accident with the door grill of the new flat yesterday, and now there is a blood clot on my right index finger that looks oblong and dark red. From a slight distance away, it looks like there is a small leech on my finger.
The day stretched on with a long staff conference, followed by phototaking with the year 2 exco of the AVC, and some last minute administration tasks that popped up. My laptop gave me a scare by hanging, and I was frantically backing up my files just in case. By the time my fiancee and I left, it was late afternoon. We made our way down to Geylang to search for the last light for the house, which is for the balcony, and to acquire mirrors for all three bathrooms, and some kitchen racks. I wanted to go for church prayer meeting originally, but I had to buy these things in time for the contractor tomorrow to install all the accessories.
We had dinner at Cheng Mun Chee Kee (I think that's the name...vaguely) at Geylang. The original (I think it is...) place is off Lavender Food Court, which I had raved about before. I'm not sure if this one at Geylang is a franchise or a branch, but comparatively, it is way poorer. The soup base was still thick, but not as rich as the original, and a tad bit salty. What was disappointing was the liver, which was cut so thinly it turned out overcooked. So were the pig's intestines, which also looked oddly dark in colour, as opposed to the usual greyish ones. They actually didn't have braised peanuts, which was our favourite side dish at the Lavender shop. I think we were so disappointed in the end that we went next door to Rochor Bean Curd to have dou jiang you tiao.
After going back and forth between two shops, we managed to get the things we wanted. One shop couldn't do the delivery in time for tomorrow, so in the end, we made our way down to Pasir Ris to drop off some items there.
The day stretched on with a long staff conference, followed by phototaking with the year 2 exco of the AVC, and some last minute administration tasks that popped up. My laptop gave me a scare by hanging, and I was frantically backing up my files just in case. By the time my fiancee and I left, it was late afternoon. We made our way down to Geylang to search for the last light for the house, which is for the balcony, and to acquire mirrors for all three bathrooms, and some kitchen racks. I wanted to go for church prayer meeting originally, but I had to buy these things in time for the contractor tomorrow to install all the accessories.
We had dinner at Cheng Mun Chee Kee (I think that's the name...vaguely) at Geylang. The original (I think it is...) place is off Lavender Food Court, which I had raved about before. I'm not sure if this one at Geylang is a franchise or a branch, but comparatively, it is way poorer. The soup base was still thick, but not as rich as the original, and a tad bit salty. What was disappointing was the liver, which was cut so thinly it turned out overcooked. So were the pig's intestines, which also looked oddly dark in colour, as opposed to the usual greyish ones. They actually didn't have braised peanuts, which was our favourite side dish at the Lavender shop. I think we were so disappointed in the end that we went next door to Rochor Bean Curd to have dou jiang you tiao.
After going back and forth between two shops, we managed to get the things we wanted. One shop couldn't do the delivery in time for tomorrow, so in the end, we made our way down to Pasir Ris to drop off some items there.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Mon 23 Jul
I didn't go to school today, but unlike last week, it wasn't because I was sick. I was arrowed by my HOD to attend this program evaluation course spanning today and tomorrow. It was held at St Margaret's Sec, so the original route I found was to transfer bus at Miramar Hotel to 186. Along the way, I realized that 186 passes by Queenstown MRT station, so I decided tomorrow I would take a train and then transfer to 186 there, and wake up a tad bit later.
Frankly I wasn't exactly sure why I was there, in the sense that I didn't know if I was actually supposed to evaluate some program we have in the school, but in any case, I went there trying to learn something useful. I did pick up some things that were relevant, so at least the two days weren't a waste, but I must say that the facilitator seemed rather haphazard in his delivery initially that I was sure he was arrowed last minute to come as well. The food during the tea breaks sucked, so there was no consolation in that. I had one colleague who was in the same boat as me, and he drove us out to Sixth Avenue for lunch.
After the course, I planned to meet my fiancee to go to Ikea Tampines, and my colleague sent us to Tampines Central, after a detour to pick up his Transformers toys (they look really cool) and to buy food. My fiancee and I had dinner at Crystal Jade and then headed down to Ikea. We managed to acquire the items we shortlisted initially, and the furnishing for the new flat (phase I only) was almost complete, save for a few small items. Considering present financial circumstances, I think it would already be a small miracle if I can carry out phase II by December when the year end bonus comes in. All in all, we spent $800+ at Ikea, counting delivery and installation. Ouch. But I have the Ikea card, which allows for installments, and the monthly cost is under a hundred. Whoever came up with the idea of installments was absolutely brilliant from a retail standpoint.
Tue 24 Jul
I made my way to the course, and met my colleague who chose not to drive today, and a principal who was in my group, on the bus and train respectively. That principal seemed young for her position, but she had no airs, and was extremely chatty, so we were talking about a great many things. I think we all have little knowledge about what is going on at other levels, so we were having discussions about the primary school stuff (she's a primary school principal) and my JC stuff. The facilitator was nice enough to release us early, so I made my way down to my new flat to await a delivery that I couldn't manage to delay.
So exciting! My interior designer says that he can hand over the flat in completed state by end of this week, either Sat or Sun. I have arranged for most of the rest of the deliveries to be made on next Tue, so the house should look quite ready by midweek next week. D-day to leave my central location and become a eastie is 11 Aug. I might as well see some fireworks from my current place for the last time before I move. Haha.
I didn't go to school today, but unlike last week, it wasn't because I was sick. I was arrowed by my HOD to attend this program evaluation course spanning today and tomorrow. It was held at St Margaret's Sec, so the original route I found was to transfer bus at Miramar Hotel to 186. Along the way, I realized that 186 passes by Queenstown MRT station, so I decided tomorrow I would take a train and then transfer to 186 there, and wake up a tad bit later.
Frankly I wasn't exactly sure why I was there, in the sense that I didn't know if I was actually supposed to evaluate some program we have in the school, but in any case, I went there trying to learn something useful. I did pick up some things that were relevant, so at least the two days weren't a waste, but I must say that the facilitator seemed rather haphazard in his delivery initially that I was sure he was arrowed last minute to come as well. The food during the tea breaks sucked, so there was no consolation in that. I had one colleague who was in the same boat as me, and he drove us out to Sixth Avenue for lunch.
After the course, I planned to meet my fiancee to go to Ikea Tampines, and my colleague sent us to Tampines Central, after a detour to pick up his Transformers toys (they look really cool) and to buy food. My fiancee and I had dinner at Crystal Jade and then headed down to Ikea. We managed to acquire the items we shortlisted initially, and the furnishing for the new flat (phase I only) was almost complete, save for a few small items. Considering present financial circumstances, I think it would already be a small miracle if I can carry out phase II by December when the year end bonus comes in. All in all, we spent $800+ at Ikea, counting delivery and installation. Ouch. But I have the Ikea card, which allows for installments, and the monthly cost is under a hundred. Whoever came up with the idea of installments was absolutely brilliant from a retail standpoint.
Tue 24 Jul
I made my way to the course, and met my colleague who chose not to drive today, and a principal who was in my group, on the bus and train respectively. That principal seemed young for her position, but she had no airs, and was extremely chatty, so we were talking about a great many things. I think we all have little knowledge about what is going on at other levels, so we were having discussions about the primary school stuff (she's a primary school principal) and my JC stuff. The facilitator was nice enough to release us early, so I made my way down to my new flat to await a delivery that I couldn't manage to delay.
So exciting! My interior designer says that he can hand over the flat in completed state by end of this week, either Sat or Sun. I have arranged for most of the rest of the deliveries to be made on next Tue, so the house should look quite ready by midweek next week. D-day to leave my central location and become a eastie is 11 Aug. I might as well see some fireworks from my current place for the last time before I move. Haha.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Fri 20 Jul
I managed to finish some work, and inbetween, I went to troubleshoot my principal's laptop because she was having difficulties playing the roadshow powerpoint I made for her, and I still couldn't manage to resolve one problem of allowing the ActiveX control to play the flash introduction.
After my remedial and lesson proper, my fiancee and I managed to go off with a colleague to Ikea to grab a nice dinner before heading back for the Parent-Tutor Dialogue. I realized one bad thing about straddling the third year IP (equivalent of JC1) and JC2 - I'm down for every Parent-Tutor Dialogue there is in the year. Anyway, I kept true to my service motto. Every parent who spoke with me would walk away smiling happily. Somehow, God has always blessed me with the wisdom to speak the most appropriate and accurate things, specific to every student, and make it sound optimistic. Only one parent didn't walk away smiling much, but considering that he left saying that it was really good to have spoken to me, and that he started off on the verge of angry, I think it was a success still. I had parents meeting me from start to after the official end, and I was done at around 9.35 pm. What a long and tiring day.
Sat 21 Jul
Originally, my fiancee and I planned to go down to our new place, take some measurements and snoop around for any defects, and then head down to Ikea. We managed to do all the former things, but because there was some delay in the renovation since HDB took really long to approve our permit to fix up a roof for the balcony, I figured I didn't want to go Ikea too soon. Ikea's policy is that the delivery must be done within a week, so I was thinking it may be too early. In the end, we shopped around a bit, before my fiancee had a bad headache, so we went back to her place instead.
Anyway, that was a miscalculation. Several items that we needed to get require installation, and it had better been done by the guys handling our renovation, so it looks like a trip to Ikea is imminent, especially since now both of us are dead broke. From the looks of it, doing up the renovation, furnishings and appliances will use up all our available resources.
Sun 22 Jul
I finally returned to church. Actually I only missed one week since last week I was sick, but everytime that happens, it's the equivalent of half a month interval, and that feels gravely long. We had a prayer meeting after service, and I'm glad that my boys were moving along in the 100k campaign, and the last of my boys had decided to join us in the campaign, so we are now all in it together, and that felt really satisfying. I'm now way behind schedule, but I'm sure God will return to me all that I missed when I fell sick. There are so many people that I have in mind that I want to bless and pray for, and all I need are opportunities.
I managed to finish some work, and inbetween, I went to troubleshoot my principal's laptop because she was having difficulties playing the roadshow powerpoint I made for her, and I still couldn't manage to resolve one problem of allowing the ActiveX control to play the flash introduction.
After my remedial and lesson proper, my fiancee and I managed to go off with a colleague to Ikea to grab a nice dinner before heading back for the Parent-Tutor Dialogue. I realized one bad thing about straddling the third year IP (equivalent of JC1) and JC2 - I'm down for every Parent-Tutor Dialogue there is in the year. Anyway, I kept true to my service motto. Every parent who spoke with me would walk away smiling happily. Somehow, God has always blessed me with the wisdom to speak the most appropriate and accurate things, specific to every student, and make it sound optimistic. Only one parent didn't walk away smiling much, but considering that he left saying that it was really good to have spoken to me, and that he started off on the verge of angry, I think it was a success still. I had parents meeting me from start to after the official end, and I was done at around 9.35 pm. What a long and tiring day.
Sat 21 Jul
Originally, my fiancee and I planned to go down to our new place, take some measurements and snoop around for any defects, and then head down to Ikea. We managed to do all the former things, but because there was some delay in the renovation since HDB took really long to approve our permit to fix up a roof for the balcony, I figured I didn't want to go Ikea too soon. Ikea's policy is that the delivery must be done within a week, so I was thinking it may be too early. In the end, we shopped around a bit, before my fiancee had a bad headache, so we went back to her place instead.
Anyway, that was a miscalculation. Several items that we needed to get require installation, and it had better been done by the guys handling our renovation, so it looks like a trip to Ikea is imminent, especially since now both of us are dead broke. From the looks of it, doing up the renovation, furnishings and appliances will use up all our available resources.
Sun 22 Jul
I finally returned to church. Actually I only missed one week since last week I was sick, but everytime that happens, it's the equivalent of half a month interval, and that feels gravely long. We had a prayer meeting after service, and I'm glad that my boys were moving along in the 100k campaign, and the last of my boys had decided to join us in the campaign, so we are now all in it together, and that felt really satisfying. I'm now way behind schedule, but I'm sure God will return to me all that I missed when I fell sick. There are so many people that I have in mind that I want to bless and pray for, and all I need are opportunities.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Tue 17 Jul
Another day of rest and recuperation. Today I managed to stay awake more of the time. I think I slept enough from Thu to Sun to last me a long, long time. I had managed to finish watching D.Gray-Man to the latest episode, and while waiting, I went on to start on another ongoing series Angel Heart to catch up to the latest episode. Angel Heart is based on the manga Angel Heart, and for a while I was collecting the series on comic books. The predecessor might be more familiar, which is City Hunter - a series that blood brudder Yuren and I practically grew up on when we were in secondary school. Solid stuff. I think the anime managed to catch the emotive aspect of Angel Heart way better than comic books, with the use of music, effects, voice and all.
Yay! Back to school tomorrow!
Wed 18 Jul
I finally went to school after my long haul of absence. I wanted to say I went on a 5D5N holiday of feverish fun but thought it too cheesy; I wanted to say that I went for a 6-day slimming programme but thought it too tacky. So I stuck to the bare facts when people asked me what happened to me. Anyway, most heard from my fiancee already, so I wouldn't have been able to bluff anyhow.
Lessons went on as usual, and surprisingly my voice was intact. One of my ex-students came back to share about her SMU experience, since SMU was giving a talk, and she asked me over MSN last night to eat lunch with her. The ironic thing is that when ex-students come by, they generally want to eat in the canteen for nostalgic reasons and the teachers who oblige actually would rather eat elsewhere.
There was miraculously no staff conference in the afternoon, but we had a SPA meeting instead. People from CPDD came down to ask us for our comments about the SPA review, but it was more or less to inform us of what had already been set in stone as what will be the new SPA regime in the future. The two poor guys came under a hailstone of fiery comments and suggestions (a.k.a. complaints), and together with my HOD who was helping to present, look like they were in a really tough position to have to be politically correct while empathetic. It's tough when you are the small fry conveying the decisions of the big fry which are likely to ruffle some feathers.
My cell group was going to my cell leader's place to visit her almost month-old baby girl, but I thought it prudent to stay way clear of her considering that I may yet be contagious with a ultra-virulent bacteria that 625 mg antibiotics could not destroy. Instead, I headed down to my new flat with my fiancee to check it out. I am very happy with what I saw. Now that the carpentry is up, and the place acid-washed already, it is looking really chic, with only a few small items incomplete. Exciting!
Thu 19 Jul
Getting cab in the morning today was a nightmare. I flagged down at least three cabs that just drove past me, without a on-call or changing-shift signal. The one I finally got drove so slowly and the traffic itself was quite heavy, and I only reached school after the first bell went. Today is a long day in terms of lessons again. Although my throat has not fully recovered from the bacterial infection, at least I still retain the volume of my voice and am able to teach as usual. I met my reporting officer for a mid year review of my performance, and I suppose it went well.
After school was over, my fiancee and I headed down to Tampines Mall to buy tickets for the long overdue movie Transformers! I was supposed to watch it with my blood brudders, but they delayed it one week because of my Ed Silvoso conference, and then the following week, I was hit by bacterial infection, so I told them to go ahead without me. We had an early dinner at Central, this Hong Kong cafe style restaurant at the fourth floor. The food was not bad, but nothing spectacular. I had the XO sauce seafood fried rice which had the right taste and fragrance, but too much dried chilli flakes. Is it a Hong Kong cuisine style to make things really spicy? I'm reminded of the pork chop rice I had at Hong Kong Cafe, which had gratuitous chilli padi sprewn all over it, and something else that was hot, but I can't offhand remember now.
Before the show started, we went window-shopping, which turned into major shopping for me when I hit Metro at Century Square. Metro is closing. Closing! I don't quite believe it, but one of the saleslady said something about their contract being up, the rental going up, and the management deciding to pull out. Well, that didn't concern me much. What did concern me was that many of the items there were going at 50% + 20% off. Since it's 20% off the remaining 50%, that is a total of 10% of the original price, i.e. it's actually a 60% off sale. Isn't the ability to use maths powerful? You can see through sales marketing gimmicks like this right away! Some other items were at offer prices and were going for a further 20%. I still thought some of the things were worth buying, and I walked away with a new pair of Crocodile shoes, two pairs of Haberdasher pants, one pair of Lawman jeans, three pairs of boxers, one from Calvin Klein, another two from Renoma, and two pairs of toe socks. Total cost was $160+, but I found it a pretty decent deal.
We then headed back to catch Transformers, and it was superb. Of course, Michael Bay could have stuck to something closer to the original series, or meaningful, but I guess with all the budget he set aside for cgi, he just went for all out action. I must say, the animation looked excellent, with such great attention for detail. I read some trivia that it took a supercomputer one full day to render just one frame of movement for the movie. I wonder how many computers they used to do the full cgi then. The way the robots transformed was far more sophisticated than the cartoons for sure. I think the pace of the film and how it developed to its climatic fight between Autobots and Decepticons was well structured. The action was sufficiently realistic, in the sense that the machines way overpowered the humans, and there's no one performing some superhuman feat that would upstage the robots. But I guess a movie's just different from the cartoon huh? In the cartoon, it's like the Autobots and Decepticons can fight a gazillion times and nobody dies, since there needs to be continuation, but a movie doesn't need to leave room for that, so it can jolly well terminate anyone it so pleases.
Another day of rest and recuperation. Today I managed to stay awake more of the time. I think I slept enough from Thu to Sun to last me a long, long time. I had managed to finish watching D.Gray-Man to the latest episode, and while waiting, I went on to start on another ongoing series Angel Heart to catch up to the latest episode. Angel Heart is based on the manga Angel Heart, and for a while I was collecting the series on comic books. The predecessor might be more familiar, which is City Hunter - a series that blood brudder Yuren and I practically grew up on when we were in secondary school. Solid stuff. I think the anime managed to catch the emotive aspect of Angel Heart way better than comic books, with the use of music, effects, voice and all.
Yay! Back to school tomorrow!
Wed 18 Jul
I finally went to school after my long haul of absence. I wanted to say I went on a 5D5N holiday of feverish fun but thought it too cheesy; I wanted to say that I went for a 6-day slimming programme but thought it too tacky. So I stuck to the bare facts when people asked me what happened to me. Anyway, most heard from my fiancee already, so I wouldn't have been able to bluff anyhow.
Lessons went on as usual, and surprisingly my voice was intact. One of my ex-students came back to share about her SMU experience, since SMU was giving a talk, and she asked me over MSN last night to eat lunch with her. The ironic thing is that when ex-students come by, they generally want to eat in the canteen for nostalgic reasons and the teachers who oblige actually would rather eat elsewhere.
There was miraculously no staff conference in the afternoon, but we had a SPA meeting instead. People from CPDD came down to ask us for our comments about the SPA review, but it was more or less to inform us of what had already been set in stone as what will be the new SPA regime in the future. The two poor guys came under a hailstone of fiery comments and suggestions (a.k.a. complaints), and together with my HOD who was helping to present, look like they were in a really tough position to have to be politically correct while empathetic. It's tough when you are the small fry conveying the decisions of the big fry which are likely to ruffle some feathers.
My cell group was going to my cell leader's place to visit her almost month-old baby girl, but I thought it prudent to stay way clear of her considering that I may yet be contagious with a ultra-virulent bacteria that 625 mg antibiotics could not destroy. Instead, I headed down to my new flat with my fiancee to check it out. I am very happy with what I saw. Now that the carpentry is up, and the place acid-washed already, it is looking really chic, with only a few small items incomplete. Exciting!
Thu 19 Jul
Getting cab in the morning today was a nightmare. I flagged down at least three cabs that just drove past me, without a on-call or changing-shift signal. The one I finally got drove so slowly and the traffic itself was quite heavy, and I only reached school after the first bell went. Today is a long day in terms of lessons again. Although my throat has not fully recovered from the bacterial infection, at least I still retain the volume of my voice and am able to teach as usual. I met my reporting officer for a mid year review of my performance, and I suppose it went well.
After school was over, my fiancee and I headed down to Tampines Mall to buy tickets for the long overdue movie Transformers! I was supposed to watch it with my blood brudders, but they delayed it one week because of my Ed Silvoso conference, and then the following week, I was hit by bacterial infection, so I told them to go ahead without me. We had an early dinner at Central, this Hong Kong cafe style restaurant at the fourth floor. The food was not bad, but nothing spectacular. I had the XO sauce seafood fried rice which had the right taste and fragrance, but too much dried chilli flakes. Is it a Hong Kong cuisine style to make things really spicy? I'm reminded of the pork chop rice I had at Hong Kong Cafe, which had gratuitous chilli padi sprewn all over it, and something else that was hot, but I can't offhand remember now.
Before the show started, we went window-shopping, which turned into major shopping for me when I hit Metro at Century Square. Metro is closing. Closing! I don't quite believe it, but one of the saleslady said something about their contract being up, the rental going up, and the management deciding to pull out. Well, that didn't concern me much. What did concern me was that many of the items there were going at 50% + 20% off. Since it's 20% off the remaining 50%, that is a total of 10% of the original price, i.e. it's actually a 60% off sale. Isn't the ability to use maths powerful? You can see through sales marketing gimmicks like this right away! Some other items were at offer prices and were going for a further 20%. I still thought some of the things were worth buying, and I walked away with a new pair of Crocodile shoes, two pairs of Haberdasher pants, one pair of Lawman jeans, three pairs of boxers, one from Calvin Klein, another two from Renoma, and two pairs of toe socks. Total cost was $160+, but I found it a pretty decent deal.
We then headed back to catch Transformers, and it was superb. Of course, Michael Bay could have stuck to something closer to the original series, or meaningful, but I guess with all the budget he set aside for cgi, he just went for all out action. I must say, the animation looked excellent, with such great attention for detail. I read some trivia that it took a supercomputer one full day to render just one frame of movement for the movie. I wonder how many computers they used to do the full cgi then. The way the robots transformed was far more sophisticated than the cartoons for sure. I think the pace of the film and how it developed to its climatic fight between Autobots and Decepticons was well structured. The action was sufficiently realistic, in the sense that the machines way overpowered the humans, and there's no one performing some superhuman feat that would upstage the robots. But I guess a movie's just different from the cartoon huh? In the cartoon, it's like the Autobots and Decepticons can fight a gazillion times and nobody dies, since there needs to be continuation, but a movie doesn't need to leave room for that, so it can jolly well terminate anyone it so pleases.
Monday, July 16, 2007
I went to take a blood test in the morning, just to check whether it might be dengue fever, since there is still the unreceding high fever symptom. The drawing of blood was very painful; the doctor said that my vein seemed to collapse quite easily and that it's very thin, which was the same thing the nurse said when I last tried to donate blood (and failed...). The doctor gave me a mouth wash to gargle to handle the infection better, and a second course of antibiotics to supplement the first one. This must be the first time I'm taking two course of antibiotics simultaneously.
The result came back in the evening, and it was negative for dengue. The doctor said that from the white blood cell count, it looks like I should be at the tail end of the infection. He said it should be just acute tonsillitis, and it is just one very nasty bacterial infection. He estimated that I should be well enough on Wed, so looks like I got to stay home one more day tomorrow.
The result came back in the evening, and it was negative for dengue. The doctor said that from the white blood cell count, it looks like I should be at the tail end of the infection. He said it should be just acute tonsillitis, and it is just one very nasty bacterial infection. He estimated that I should be well enough on Wed, so looks like I got to stay home one more day tomorrow.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
I went to see the doctor in the morning. Apparently the fever hasn't subsided. In fact, last night, it hit 39.5 degrees again. I was radiating so much heat from my palms, feet, back, belly and face that at one point, I thought I was going to shoot flames from my hands and become the Human Torch from Fantastic Four, and at another point, I wondered if this was what purgatory would feel like. I think three days of unreceding fever was making me delusional. Anyway, the doctor said that he could send me to the hospital, but he honestly thought it would be a waste of time. Other than the fact that I would have to waste a lot of time sitting around waiting, if my platelet count is not below critical level (even if I did have dengue), the hospital would still send me home. He still thinks that it's unlikely to be dengue since the persistent fever is the only symptom I have, so he recommends that I take a new course of fever medication, and he administer the blood test tomorrow just in case, and perhaps change the antibiotics.
I actually thought I was feeling better today after the new fever medication, but I just took my temperature and found it to be 38.3! I think I have gotten so used to the high fever that I can't distinguish 37+ and 38+ degrees of fever anymore. Scary.
I actually thought I was feeling better today after the new fever medication, but I just took my temperature and found it to be 38.3! I think I have gotten so used to the high fever that I can't distinguish 37+ and 38+ degrees of fever anymore. Scary.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
The antibiotics seemed to work at first, but I realized that my fever had been subsiding in the mornings, but slowly climbed back up in the course of the day. Likewise, right now, my fever has gone past the 38 degree mark once more. I think I need to go and see the doctor again tomorrow morning and see if he can shed light on what is going on. My fiancee reminded me that last year around the same time, I was also heavily sick, and it was also right smack in the midst of the dengue scare. Haha, I totally forgot about that. This time round, it had better not be dengue either. I know I'm not indispensible in school, but it irks me to have to pass my classes to other people when it is my own responsibility. Keep me in prayer, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Thanks!
Friday, July 13, 2007
Tue 10 Jul
Today was a day of defeat for the 100k campaign. I approached a colleague, and he refused the blessing. I realized that after yesterday's apparent success, I did not pray beforehand over the person and intercede first, so that may have been the cause. I was talking to another colleague, who is a Buddhist, about the 100k campaign, but a female colleague of mine, Shawn, who's also from my church was there too, so I told her to pray over the Buddhist colleague instead.
After school, my fiancee and I headed down to our new place to await two deliveries. When we reached there, we found that the grills and lights were up, and some little details we mentioned to our designer were already rectified. The place looked quite radically different from the first time we stepped into it. I think the money was well-spent for the renovation.
Wed 11 Jul
I've developed a sore throat and cough since last night, but managed to have lessons as usual. I could feel the illness creeping up on me, but I intended to hold off till Fri where I have no lessons due to Excelfest, and I could safely take MC without imposing on others to cover for me for my lessons. I found out that Shawn did not have a chance to pray for our Buddhist colleague, so I went ahead to pray a blessing over her.
I went down to cell group after dinner, and halfway through, I felt the fever coming up, and by the end of cell group, I know it was a full fledged fever. I was prepared to take a cab home, but I realized that Bukit Merah is a bad place to catch a cab at 10 plus, because there were no empty cabs, or rather, none that were empty would stop. To make things worse, I was waiting for the bus for 28 min! That felt pretty miserable, fever and all.
Thu 12 Jul
The fever was quite bad by late last night, even after taking some panadol, so I knew I had to miss school. Sigh. Thursday is the worst day for me to miss, because I see all three classes, which amounted to about 5 hours of lessons. When I saw the doctor, my fever subsided, and he almost didn't give me fever medicine until I asked for it. He diagnosed it to be flu at that point, and gave me MC up to tomorrow.
I realized that I forgot to put money into my Standard Chartered account for the repayment of the renovation loan, and the first installment was due to be deducted tomorrow! Therefore, lethargic as I felt, I made my way down to South Bridge Road to a Standard Chartered branch there to settle the repayment.
I spent the whole day sleeping when I could, but the fever would come and go. My fiancee came by to visit me, but I was too lethargic to entertain her. I woke up at 2 am in the morning hungry, and ate some food and medicine, and I was still running a fever then.
Fri 13 Jul
My fever still was slowly climbing, so eventually, I went to see the doctor again in the evening. The doctor was worried it might be dengue at first, but upon examining my throat, he diagnosed it to be infected tonsils, and gave me a heavy dose of antibiotics. Hopefully this time round it would work.
Today was a day of defeat for the 100k campaign. I approached a colleague, and he refused the blessing. I realized that after yesterday's apparent success, I did not pray beforehand over the person and intercede first, so that may have been the cause. I was talking to another colleague, who is a Buddhist, about the 100k campaign, but a female colleague of mine, Shawn, who's also from my church was there too, so I told her to pray over the Buddhist colleague instead.
After school, my fiancee and I headed down to our new place to await two deliveries. When we reached there, we found that the grills and lights were up, and some little details we mentioned to our designer were already rectified. The place looked quite radically different from the first time we stepped into it. I think the money was well-spent for the renovation.
Wed 11 Jul
I've developed a sore throat and cough since last night, but managed to have lessons as usual. I could feel the illness creeping up on me, but I intended to hold off till Fri where I have no lessons due to Excelfest, and I could safely take MC without imposing on others to cover for me for my lessons. I found out that Shawn did not have a chance to pray for our Buddhist colleague, so I went ahead to pray a blessing over her.
I went down to cell group after dinner, and halfway through, I felt the fever coming up, and by the end of cell group, I know it was a full fledged fever. I was prepared to take a cab home, but I realized that Bukit Merah is a bad place to catch a cab at 10 plus, because there were no empty cabs, or rather, none that were empty would stop. To make things worse, I was waiting for the bus for 28 min! That felt pretty miserable, fever and all.
Thu 12 Jul
The fever was quite bad by late last night, even after taking some panadol, so I knew I had to miss school. Sigh. Thursday is the worst day for me to miss, because I see all three classes, which amounted to about 5 hours of lessons. When I saw the doctor, my fever subsided, and he almost didn't give me fever medicine until I asked for it. He diagnosed it to be flu at that point, and gave me MC up to tomorrow.
I realized that I forgot to put money into my Standard Chartered account for the repayment of the renovation loan, and the first installment was due to be deducted tomorrow! Therefore, lethargic as I felt, I made my way down to South Bridge Road to a Standard Chartered branch there to settle the repayment.
I spent the whole day sleeping when I could, but the fever would come and go. My fiancee came by to visit me, but I was too lethargic to entertain her. I woke up at 2 am in the morning hungry, and ate some food and medicine, and I was still running a fever then.
Fri 13 Jul
My fever still was slowly climbing, so eventually, I went to see the doctor again in the evening. The doctor was worried it might be dengue at first, but upon examining my throat, he diagnosed it to be infected tonsils, and gave me a heavy dose of antibiotics. Hopefully this time round it would work.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Sun 8 Jul
Ed Silvoso preached for service today, and I found it powerful and interesting. I think unfortunately for many people I observed around me, they could not catch all that he was saying because of his accent, but for me, and my cell leader, who caught almost every word, he was an entertaining man, especially the candid way he pitched his own life stories, or testimonies of others. Such a waste for those who were switched off because of his voice, since his anointing was tremendous.
Today is the official start of the 100k campaign where 5717 of us from the church will go back to our workplace, school, neighbourhood, and etc to bless twenty people each. I think I finally caught the spirit of the campaign after the Ed Silvoso conference. Ps Khong said that it wasn't about completing a mission, which I totally agree with, and it is about being a blessing to our community. I think it goes beyond that. I feel that the marketplace ministry teaching from Ed Silvoso was so strategically positioned to commission the start of the campaign, because I think that the campaign is to start us off in little steps to be more aware of the people around us who have felt needs, and get us moving in ministering to people who need the ministry, else we may go through the bulk of our Christian life hearing our friends talk about their problems and either not caring enough, or offering very commonplace secular advice and wisdom, when we should be praying. This is my own reflection of what I have been doing, and I know I have not prayed enough when I should have and could have. I pray that this will push me into a new phase of my Christian walk.
Mon 9 Jul
I have prayed over two colleagues today! Not a mighty big number, but it is a small step forward. I realize that the easy part is to seat someone down and bless him or her. The slightly harder part is to keep up the regular prayer for them, but the hardest and yet simultaneously the easiest part is to have the faith to believe that the prayers are answered.
After school, my fiancee and I headed down to Nam Wah building to look for lights, as recommended by a colleague, but we found nothing we fancy there. We then took a bus down to Geylang, originally intending to go back to the shop where our interior designer brought us the first time round. We checked out a few other lighting shops along the way, and then we stumbled upon a bathroom and kitchen accessories place, which had affordable and nice things we like for the bathrooms, like towel racks, corner racks for the toiletries, and etc.
We spent so long a time there that we were famished, and came out hunting for food rather than lights (partly because it is not urgently needed), and made our way down to a coffee shop. I'm not sure where the place is, but we had delicious satay (I think the stall's name is Kwong Satay, or something like that) where the sauce was so rich with peanut bits, and good fried hokkien mee. The small plate costs $4, which felt a bit steep to me, but it tasted really good. I would have personally liked it done dryer, but it still was tasty enough for me.
Ed Silvoso preached for service today, and I found it powerful and interesting. I think unfortunately for many people I observed around me, they could not catch all that he was saying because of his accent, but for me, and my cell leader, who caught almost every word, he was an entertaining man, especially the candid way he pitched his own life stories, or testimonies of others. Such a waste for those who were switched off because of his voice, since his anointing was tremendous.
Today is the official start of the 100k campaign where 5717 of us from the church will go back to our workplace, school, neighbourhood, and etc to bless twenty people each. I think I finally caught the spirit of the campaign after the Ed Silvoso conference. Ps Khong said that it wasn't about completing a mission, which I totally agree with, and it is about being a blessing to our community. I think it goes beyond that. I feel that the marketplace ministry teaching from Ed Silvoso was so strategically positioned to commission the start of the campaign, because I think that the campaign is to start us off in little steps to be more aware of the people around us who have felt needs, and get us moving in ministering to people who need the ministry, else we may go through the bulk of our Christian life hearing our friends talk about their problems and either not caring enough, or offering very commonplace secular advice and wisdom, when we should be praying. This is my own reflection of what I have been doing, and I know I have not prayed enough when I should have and could have. I pray that this will push me into a new phase of my Christian walk.
Mon 9 Jul
I have prayed over two colleagues today! Not a mighty big number, but it is a small step forward. I realize that the easy part is to seat someone down and bless him or her. The slightly harder part is to keep up the regular prayer for them, but the hardest and yet simultaneously the easiest part is to have the faith to believe that the prayers are answered.
After school, my fiancee and I headed down to Nam Wah building to look for lights, as recommended by a colleague, but we found nothing we fancy there. We then took a bus down to Geylang, originally intending to go back to the shop where our interior designer brought us the first time round. We checked out a few other lighting shops along the way, and then we stumbled upon a bathroom and kitchen accessories place, which had affordable and nice things we like for the bathrooms, like towel racks, corner racks for the toiletries, and etc.
We spent so long a time there that we were famished, and came out hunting for food rather than lights (partly because it is not urgently needed), and made our way down to a coffee shop. I'm not sure where the place is, but we had delicious satay (I think the stall's name is Kwong Satay, or something like that) where the sauce was so rich with peanut bits, and good fried hokkien mee. The small plate costs $4, which felt a bit steep to me, but it tasted really good. I would have personally liked it done dryer, but it still was tasty enough for me.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Wed 4 Jul
I returned the June Common Test scripts to the first class I saw this week. The results were poor, or at least, worse than I expected of them, but I couldn't bring myself to scold the class. I think many of the students have tried hard, and most of them should know for themselves whether the results they received were considered good or bad, so I believe anyone with a decent enough attitude should recognize and want to improve. Maybe I'm too idealistic this time...ah well.
There was no staff conference today, so I could steal a nap at home before heading out to Bukit Merah for leaders' meeting. The session today was quite amusing because Ps Eugene used some army lingo to talk about getting prepared for our upcoming "military" campaign of blessing 100,000 people. He played a video by Ed Silvoso, who would be coming this weekend to do a marketplace seminar with the church, and it was about the youths in some parts of the USA making an impact and changing their schools, neighbourhoods and so on. Inspiring stuff there.
Thu 5 Jul
I had a long day in school today, returning the exam scripts to two other classes. Similarly I decided that I would not scold them, but let them face the reality and come to grips with it themselves. I had dinner with my fiancee and spent a quiet evening at her place.
Fri 6 Jul
After school was over, we made our way down to our new flat in the late afternoon. The workmen were already done for the day, so we had an unobstructed look at the place. The tiling was completely finished. The basins, taps and toilets bowls (except one) were installed already. The cellophane that the previous owner stuck on the windows had been taken down, and some of the walls were already painted. One thing we found was that the flat had quite good ventilation. Most of the time we went to visit the place, there was a breeze. Today, we only opened two panels of the windows, and it was quite windy. I really thank God for the flat, especially because the property prices have escalated to ridiculous values.
After a dinner at the food court at White Sands (checking out future meal options in advance...), I made my way down to the Expo for the Ed Silvoso conference. I think the guy looks like Mr Bean from the nose down, and the way he talks is also somewhat similar. In any case, he was a really anointed man of God who spoke with great clarity, wisdom and authority. The things he preached about really opened up my mind and boosted the faith in my spirit. All the while I was thinking to myself that I should have coerced my two other boys to come, because the impartation was wonderful, and they missed out totally. After all his testimonies about whole cities being transformed by God, in my heart, I finally truly believe that Singapore can be saved, and that we can disciple the nation.
Sat 7 Jul
After lunching with my fiancee, I made my way down to the Expo for the second leg of the conference, which was mercifully starting at 2 pm. Today's session talked about prayer evangelism, which was something I needed to hear. I've always thought something was wrong with the more 'traditional' way of sharing the gospel, and pitching the gospel from the angle of eternal life to people who don't even care about the present just sounded totally off. Ed Silvoso's principles of prayer evangelism to me would be best summarized as 'bless first, preach later'. Again, his testimonies of what is happening to corporations, cities, governments around the world were mind-blowing. Just the idea that presidents and ministers, mayors and judges, and people of influence have been saved and are actively inviting Jesus to preside over the country, cities, towns, courtrooms, jails, and etc was something paradigm changing on its own.
The session after dinner was about wealth and how God means to prosper His people, but we are the ones who attach a negative (spiritual) connotation to the rich. I have always believed that as Christians, all the more we need to excel in our workplace and all, and Ed Silvoso managed to pitch that convincingly using scripture, and now I believe I must attain Godly success in my work so that I can do more things in time to come. But the most freeing thing I learnt of all was that we could all be marketplace ministers and church ought most to be done on the days before and after Sunday. My faith isn't big, but I would still want to see God's hand moving within my school. The conference was so enlightening and engaging that I didn't even remotely feel sleepy at any point at all. Cool.
I returned the June Common Test scripts to the first class I saw this week. The results were poor, or at least, worse than I expected of them, but I couldn't bring myself to scold the class. I think many of the students have tried hard, and most of them should know for themselves whether the results they received were considered good or bad, so I believe anyone with a decent enough attitude should recognize and want to improve. Maybe I'm too idealistic this time...ah well.
There was no staff conference today, so I could steal a nap at home before heading out to Bukit Merah for leaders' meeting. The session today was quite amusing because Ps Eugene used some army lingo to talk about getting prepared for our upcoming "military" campaign of blessing 100,000 people. He played a video by Ed Silvoso, who would be coming this weekend to do a marketplace seminar with the church, and it was about the youths in some parts of the USA making an impact and changing their schools, neighbourhoods and so on. Inspiring stuff there.
Thu 5 Jul
I had a long day in school today, returning the exam scripts to two other classes. Similarly I decided that I would not scold them, but let them face the reality and come to grips with it themselves. I had dinner with my fiancee and spent a quiet evening at her place.
Fri 6 Jul
After school was over, we made our way down to our new flat in the late afternoon. The workmen were already done for the day, so we had an unobstructed look at the place. The tiling was completely finished. The basins, taps and toilets bowls (except one) were installed already. The cellophane that the previous owner stuck on the windows had been taken down, and some of the walls were already painted. One thing we found was that the flat had quite good ventilation. Most of the time we went to visit the place, there was a breeze. Today, we only opened two panels of the windows, and it was quite windy. I really thank God for the flat, especially because the property prices have escalated to ridiculous values.
After a dinner at the food court at White Sands (checking out future meal options in advance...), I made my way down to the Expo for the Ed Silvoso conference. I think the guy looks like Mr Bean from the nose down, and the way he talks is also somewhat similar. In any case, he was a really anointed man of God who spoke with great clarity, wisdom and authority. The things he preached about really opened up my mind and boosted the faith in my spirit. All the while I was thinking to myself that I should have coerced my two other boys to come, because the impartation was wonderful, and they missed out totally. After all his testimonies about whole cities being transformed by God, in my heart, I finally truly believe that Singapore can be saved, and that we can disciple the nation.
Sat 7 Jul
After lunching with my fiancee, I made my way down to the Expo for the second leg of the conference, which was mercifully starting at 2 pm. Today's session talked about prayer evangelism, which was something I needed to hear. I've always thought something was wrong with the more 'traditional' way of sharing the gospel, and pitching the gospel from the angle of eternal life to people who don't even care about the present just sounded totally off. Ed Silvoso's principles of prayer evangelism to me would be best summarized as 'bless first, preach later'. Again, his testimonies of what is happening to corporations, cities, governments around the world were mind-blowing. Just the idea that presidents and ministers, mayors and judges, and people of influence have been saved and are actively inviting Jesus to preside over the country, cities, towns, courtrooms, jails, and etc was something paradigm changing on its own.
The session after dinner was about wealth and how God means to prosper His people, but we are the ones who attach a negative (spiritual) connotation to the rich. I have always believed that as Christians, all the more we need to excel in our workplace and all, and Ed Silvoso managed to pitch that convincingly using scripture, and now I believe I must attain Godly success in my work so that I can do more things in time to come. But the most freeing thing I learnt of all was that we could all be marketplace ministers and church ought most to be done on the days before and after Sunday. My faith isn't big, but I would still want to see God's hand moving within my school. The conference was so enlightening and engaging that I didn't even remotely feel sleepy at any point at all. Cool.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Sun 1 Jul
It's Youth Day today! Not that it really matters to me actually. I had service and cell group as usual, and headed off to find my fiancee at the reflexology place at Bedok. Frankly, I'm still impressed by Chinese medicine. It's amazing how many things they can figure out just by massaging your feet or back, or other parts of the body, just by observing whether you are comfortable or wincing in pain. The lady massaging my fiancee pointed out some of her physical ailments lately, and they were all spot-on. It's back to the old adage that Western medicine targets the symptoms, but Chinese medicine targets the root causes.
Mon 2 Jul
My fiancee and I met our interior designer Ken in the late morning. Today we were going to buy all the lights for the whole house. It didn't take as long as we anticipated, and we managed to pick almost all the lights except for the one above the dining table. Man, lights are expensive too, especially since I am doing some false ceilings to play with some lighting effects for better mood in the living room and master bedroom. Overall, excluding those we couldn't decide on, the lights for the whole house came up to about 1k. Ouch. Maisonettes come with quite a few additional costs with the sheer size.
We headed to Ikea to buy a light for the staircase, and we were done for the day, but still missing a couple more pieces. Ken dropped us off at Tampines, and we were originally thinking of catching a movie, but upon reaching there, the crowd turned me off completely. Personally, I dislike Tampines. Nothing against the people staying there, but just the fact that the two malls are grossly overpopulated. I think if any more people go to Tampines Mall during the weekends and holidays, people will start spilling out of the glass windows. It took me only a minute to decide to flee the place. We were considering watching a movie elsewhere when my fiancee thought of going to our bridal studio one day early to pick photos. Although the original appointment was to be Tue, they were willing to accomodate us, so we made our way down to Tanjong Pagar.
Now, out of the people I know who have gotten married, most of them blew the budget because they picked too many photos. I don't know if it is a bad thing or a blessing in disguise, but we managed to exceed our allocated 26 photos by 2 only. The main bottleneck was me apparently. I don't smile well, and many photos didn't look good enough because I didn't smile naturally enough. I think my cheeks are just too fat to be lifted up nicely when I smile. So ruling out those that I think I look terrible in, we managed to eliminate quite a number. After my fiancee took out those that she doesn't like, which ended up being a lot, and striking out repeated poses, it took us about 2 hours to shortlist our final 28. From what I know, that is short.
After we were done, we headed out to Bugis to have dinner at Phin's Steakhouse, and took a walk at The Icon. We were shocked to hear that all the retail shops were going to be relocated to Far East and Central because the owners of the building decided to convert the place back to office space, and gave the owners rather short notice. Hence there is quite a sale going on there till the end of the month. I managed to find a nice polo-tee, and just as we wanted to leave, we chanced upon this shop called Think White, which had accessories. My fiancee originally only wanted to get a chain to replace one broken one, but when we were there, we found many cool pieces. The owner of the shop was there, and he was one friendly, chatty fella who was passionate about this hobby shop of his. He had a huge collection of crosses, and some extraordinary wedding bands (too bad I bought mine already). One pair of wedding bands was made of carbide, and the guy knocked the rings with metal pincers and all, and not a single scratch on them. If I was loaded, I tell you, I would have bought at least 4 crosses just for myself, because they were really unique. In the end, I bought one that had carbon fibre inset, and it gleamed blue in light which was really cool, and I bought a cross with swarovski crystal inset for my fiancee.
Tue 3 Jul
Today was a short day, so I rounded up three colleagues to go with my fiancee and me to watch Ocean's Thirteen. I know it is almost to the end of its run, but before this, I really couldn't fork out time to watch it, much as I wanted to. We had lunch at Pastamania, and then went to hunt for a new phone for my fiancee. Apparently, her current phone had problems with the speaker after she dropped it, so she decided to change it. In the end, she settled on an E65, which looked sleek and cool. It turned out that the Citibank credit card (i.e. mine) could take up to a year of interest-free installment payment, so I paid for the phone, and decided to make it a gift. The phone costs $248 which looked slightly expensive, but not daunting. But once it is phrased as installment, the cost is about $20 per month. See the drastic difference? No wonder the banks are willing to offer interest-free installment plans. It is an easy and sure trap to promote purchasing.
The movie was really cool. I'm glad I managed to catch it before it ends its run. Although I prefer Ocean's Eleven most of all, I think this one had a slicker finish than Twelve at least. Somehow, Twelve felt very cheapskate to me in the plot twist of how they pulled off the heist. In Thirteen, everything was more or less spelt out for us right from the start, but it was entertaining to see the whole thing unfold. The villain in this show seemed quite exaggeratedly heartless, played well by Al Pacino, but otherwise, the movie is just about a bunch of boys having revenge and a whole lot of fun. The gadgets were over the top, but I wonder if such technology is seriously available. Scary though.
I have finally caught up with Naruto Shippuden and am at the latest episode. It took me a few shortened-sleep-nights to get there but I did. I think I will now try to catch up to the latest episode of D.Gray-Man, on recommendation of one of my students. It seems a promising anime. Naruto is back to its exciting form again. To think that I almost gave up on it due to the unexciting neverending fillers. Tsk tsk.
It's Youth Day today! Not that it really matters to me actually. I had service and cell group as usual, and headed off to find my fiancee at the reflexology place at Bedok. Frankly, I'm still impressed by Chinese medicine. It's amazing how many things they can figure out just by massaging your feet or back, or other parts of the body, just by observing whether you are comfortable or wincing in pain. The lady massaging my fiancee pointed out some of her physical ailments lately, and they were all spot-on. It's back to the old adage that Western medicine targets the symptoms, but Chinese medicine targets the root causes.
Mon 2 Jul
My fiancee and I met our interior designer Ken in the late morning. Today we were going to buy all the lights for the whole house. It didn't take as long as we anticipated, and we managed to pick almost all the lights except for the one above the dining table. Man, lights are expensive too, especially since I am doing some false ceilings to play with some lighting effects for better mood in the living room and master bedroom. Overall, excluding those we couldn't decide on, the lights for the whole house came up to about 1k. Ouch. Maisonettes come with quite a few additional costs with the sheer size.
We headed to Ikea to buy a light for the staircase, and we were done for the day, but still missing a couple more pieces. Ken dropped us off at Tampines, and we were originally thinking of catching a movie, but upon reaching there, the crowd turned me off completely. Personally, I dislike Tampines. Nothing against the people staying there, but just the fact that the two malls are grossly overpopulated. I think if any more people go to Tampines Mall during the weekends and holidays, people will start spilling out of the glass windows. It took me only a minute to decide to flee the place. We were considering watching a movie elsewhere when my fiancee thought of going to our bridal studio one day early to pick photos. Although the original appointment was to be Tue, they were willing to accomodate us, so we made our way down to Tanjong Pagar.
Now, out of the people I know who have gotten married, most of them blew the budget because they picked too many photos. I don't know if it is a bad thing or a blessing in disguise, but we managed to exceed our allocated 26 photos by 2 only. The main bottleneck was me apparently. I don't smile well, and many photos didn't look good enough because I didn't smile naturally enough. I think my cheeks are just too fat to be lifted up nicely when I smile. So ruling out those that I think I look terrible in, we managed to eliminate quite a number. After my fiancee took out those that she doesn't like, which ended up being a lot, and striking out repeated poses, it took us about 2 hours to shortlist our final 28. From what I know, that is short.
After we were done, we headed out to Bugis to have dinner at Phin's Steakhouse, and took a walk at The Icon. We were shocked to hear that all the retail shops were going to be relocated to Far East and Central because the owners of the building decided to convert the place back to office space, and gave the owners rather short notice. Hence there is quite a sale going on there till the end of the month. I managed to find a nice polo-tee, and just as we wanted to leave, we chanced upon this shop called Think White, which had accessories. My fiancee originally only wanted to get a chain to replace one broken one, but when we were there, we found many cool pieces. The owner of the shop was there, and he was one friendly, chatty fella who was passionate about this hobby shop of his. He had a huge collection of crosses, and some extraordinary wedding bands (too bad I bought mine already). One pair of wedding bands was made of carbide, and the guy knocked the rings with metal pincers and all, and not a single scratch on them. If I was loaded, I tell you, I would have bought at least 4 crosses just for myself, because they were really unique. In the end, I bought one that had carbon fibre inset, and it gleamed blue in light which was really cool, and I bought a cross with swarovski crystal inset for my fiancee.
Tue 3 Jul
Today was a short day, so I rounded up three colleagues to go with my fiancee and me to watch Ocean's Thirteen. I know it is almost to the end of its run, but before this, I really couldn't fork out time to watch it, much as I wanted to. We had lunch at Pastamania, and then went to hunt for a new phone for my fiancee. Apparently, her current phone had problems with the speaker after she dropped it, so she decided to change it. In the end, she settled on an E65, which looked sleek and cool. It turned out that the Citibank credit card (i.e. mine) could take up to a year of interest-free installment payment, so I paid for the phone, and decided to make it a gift. The phone costs $248 which looked slightly expensive, but not daunting. But once it is phrased as installment, the cost is about $20 per month. See the drastic difference? No wonder the banks are willing to offer interest-free installment plans. It is an easy and sure trap to promote purchasing.
The movie was really cool. I'm glad I managed to catch it before it ends its run. Although I prefer Ocean's Eleven most of all, I think this one had a slicker finish than Twelve at least. Somehow, Twelve felt very cheapskate to me in the plot twist of how they pulled off the heist. In Thirteen, everything was more or less spelt out for us right from the start, but it was entertaining to see the whole thing unfold. The villain in this show seemed quite exaggeratedly heartless, played well by Al Pacino, but otherwise, the movie is just about a bunch of boys having revenge and a whole lot of fun. The gadgets were over the top, but I wonder if such technology is seriously available. Scary though.
I have finally caught up with Naruto Shippuden and am at the latest episode. It took me a few shortened-sleep-nights to get there but I did. I think I will now try to catch up to the latest episode of D.Gray-Man, on recommendation of one of my students. It seems a promising anime. Naruto is back to its exciting form again. To think that I almost gave up on it due to the unexciting neverending fillers. Tsk tsk.