It's June already!

Wow... It's been 4 months since I last blogged. I have so many thoughts that I would like to blog/ write about but could not seem to find time to pen them down or in this case, type them out. It also doesn't help when the creative juices do not seem to flow as consistently and frequently as I would like them to. I guess this is a good time to start blogging/ writing again to keep myself from getting rusty.

Time sure flies. It's coming on to the second half of the year. The past 6 months have been pretty challenging. Been tired, exhausted, stressed-out, hit the wall countless times, just to name a few things. Having said that, I have picked up some valuable lessons and experiences (both positive and negative ones) along the way, which I am thankful to God for and will try to remember them as long as my memory allows me to. Will blog more on those soon enough.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more. Thanks for reading. ;)

De-Stresser - The Most Effective Way to Reduce Cost

A colleague forwarded this comic strip to me while I was having an absolutely stressful day. I thought it was pretty hilarious. I hope it will help you to de-stress and may it brighten up your day just as it did for me. ;)

Source: Unknown (Please inform me if you know the source so that I can properly quote and credit the person)

Blessed 2009

Blessed New Year to everyone! It's amazing how each of the 366 days in 2008 have sailed by so quickly... well, most days anyways. Looking back, there were good days and there were also challenging days but most of all, I am thankful that no matter what kind of days they were, God was there with me. He is still here with me today and I know that He will always be with me in every single day, from now to eternity. I thank God for the many successes and the failures throughout the year, for He has taught me much through them. I am still struggling in certain areas of my life but I know that He has helped me come this far and I will continue to lean on Him and look to Him for His strength and complete healing. He is the Author and Perfector of my life and He is the One who will bring to completion, the works that He has begun in me.

I would also like to thank everyone who has been encouraging, supporting and praying for me. Thank you for being my family in Christ and thank you for your wonderful support. I am deeply blessed by your love and kinship in Christ.

Although the world is facing deep economic concerns, it is truly my belief that we as children of God live in His economy and in His supernatural world and we will lack no good thing because our Father withholds nothing good from us. Therefore, I know we can look forward to greater things in 2009, for our personal lives, our families, our jobs, the Church and God's ministries, the State, the Country, etc., as we continue to trust in Him.

Every new year beckons a new beginning for all things and for 2009, I want to begin afresh. I have made a few statements of faith for myself for the New Year:

1. It is not about me. It's all about Him and His business.
2. I don't have to be the smartest, the prettiest, the riches, the best, whatever to be loved by Him. He loves me just as I am, despite all my faults and failures because the blood of my precious Redeemer, Jesus Christ has redeemed me from my sins. There is nothing I can do to earn His redemption and love. It had been done and it is finished.
3. I will trust God and I know that He is bigger than I can ever imagine Him to be. He is Jehovah, He is the Almighty.
4. I don't have the earn the approval or praises of man to feel worthy. I am always precious in my Father's sight.
5. I will trust Him to provide for every single need that I have.

New resolutions are a norm for everyone during the new year and it is no different for me but I have decided not to call it "resolutions" but instead, commitments. By His grace, I want to really carry out what I have committed towards. Here are some of my commitments for 2009:

1. I will read the Bible and pray daily.
2. I will try to bless at least one person a day.
3. I will set more time aside for my family.
4. I will learn to build disciples rather than just run programs.
5. I will learn to prioritise and learn to delegate.
6. I will do my best to let go and let God.
7. I will try not to get discouraged easily but to always look to Him in all things.
8. I will not procrastinate with my work.
9. I will exercise at least once a week.
10. I will try to be on time for my appointments.

Father, I commit myself to You for Your works in 2009 and beyond. Mould me and shape me to be more like your Son, Jesus each day and use me in whatever areas that You desire to glorify Your Name and to bless others. I am Yours forevermore and may my life daily reflect the beauty of Your majesty, that people will see You in me. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Say HELLO to LOVE...

Need I say more... ;)

I cannot describe the huge grin my face when I received a call from Baptist Book Store just before I left the house to go to church this afternoon, that it has FINALLY arrived... I have enquired about the album long before it was even released in early September and I've been hunting for it ever since it was released so that tells you how much I wanted this album and how long I've waited for it. =0) Will blog my review of it soon. Only listened to just a little more than half of it right now but I like it already.

Yasumi!!!

It's FINALLY OVER... my Japanese language evaluation test, that is.

It's been about 4 months since I started taking up Japanese lessons and it's a known fact that as we approach the end of the course, there will be an evaluation of our primary understanding (or the lack thereof...) of the language. Being the busy procrastinator (cheem... I think I just created a new term) that I am, I naturally dragged my feet at keeping up with my revisions. I have also been a bit busy my work and other activities and they all kinda add up towards the lack of study time. But God, being the Faithful Father that He always is, extended grace to me whereby He actually made it possible for me to at least spend some time in doing my revision in two ways. First and foremost, our Sensei decided to announce a study week for us ie. she gave us an extra week to study for the test... Praise God, He bought me time! Secondly, we were then told that since it is just a simple evaluation, it would be an open book test, meaning, we can refer to our text books for reference if we need to... DOUBLE YAY! If only all exams were like this... ;)

So anyways, 10 days, at least, before the evaluation, I practically had my head buried into my Japanese text book every day.. what to do, I am kiasu... I didn't want to do badly even if it is just an evaluation. And worse of all is that I had to say no to my social activities and dinners because of this... I was suppose to have steamboat dinner with some friends!!! Haih... Anyways, when the evaluation day came, I felt God's peace and rest in my heart and in many ways, on that day, I kinda got tired of cramming information into my brain and I just really wanted to get it over and done with so that I can move on with my life. Praise the Lord, the paper was actually quite straight forward. In the first part, I tried to work on the paper without referring to my book because I wanted to see how much I really understand the subject. It was up to a certain point that I gave up and referred to my book because I couldn't understand what some words meant. Confusion had began to set in but thank God, I managed to figure most things out. I got my results the week after the test. By His grace, I got near perfect score. ;)

Honestly, if I were to make a list of things that irk me, examinations will definitely make it to the list without much issue. I hate exams. I hate the fact that I spend WEEKS and MONTHS attending classes and studying to understand the stuff and they make me write out whatever I think I know within a 2 to 3-hour time frame to prove that I know my stuff. I know exams are to evaluate our understanding of the subject but I can't tell you how much I abhor the process of churning out the information onto paper within a certain time frame. And worse of all, we get so caught up in the "How-Many-A's-Did-You-Score" rat race, we forget that the ability to memorize facts does not equate to the ability to apply the knowledge into pratical use. Basically, although I may understand Japanese on paper, I still cannot speak the language decently. Sigh... but I am looking at the positive side. At least, I have my social life back now... ;) Steamboat anyone?

Simple Pleasures

They say necessity is the mother of invention... I found it to be very true. I've been bring food from home for lunch this week because I'm on an austerity drive after purchasing my 'new' gadget: I got myself a 10-month old HTC Touch phone. Although it is a used item, it is still in good condition and I guess I wanted to give myself something for my upcoming birthday... no, wait... that's just an excuse. I got it because I couldn't afford the iPhone. Sigh...

But I digress.

So buying the phone has set me back by quite a bit this month so I have resorted to keeping my expenses and expenditure low for at least the next few weeks. One of the ways in which I am cutting my expenses is by bringing my own lunch from home. So far, it has been pretty interesting. My aunt made chicken porridge with dried scallops for me on Monday and that was delightful meal... I LOVE porridge. On Tuesday, I decided to make egg sandwich for lunch. I made some scrambled eggs and put them in a separate container from my bread because I didn't want my bread to be soggy by lunch time. I threw in some raw onion rings too, put the meal together at lunch time and it was absolutely satisfying. :)

The best had yet to come. On Wednesday, I had no clue on what to make. I came back from the market quite late and I have no idea what I wanted to eat. I thought of making a salad sandwich but there wasn't enough bread. I looked through the fridge and vegetable basket and decided to throw a few things together, namely a large tomato, some cabbage and 3/4 of an onion. It suddenly occurred to me that I should add some hard-boiled eggs to enhance the taste. The salad looked so colourful and I surprised myself by being so excited about a salad! And praise God, the egg and vegetable salad did taste fantastic.

Looking at the satisfaction of having the egg sandwich and the joy of putting my egg and vegetable salad together, I found that there is so much to be happy and thankful about daily. I have found cooking to be rather therapeutic for me. I don't have to be a posh restaurant (although I am not against the idea of dining at a posh restaurant) or pay a fortune to truly have a delightful meal. The joy is found when I truly enjoy what I have and when I am thankful for being able to have food available before me daily. And I am thankful that He has and will always provide for all my needs.

Young Adults' Home Group BBQ Dinner (01 February 2008)

It's time for retro rewind again... Today, I am highlight the pictures taken from the Young Adults Home Group BBQ dinner at Vincent's apartment in February, just a week before Chinese New Year.

Sharon, Ashley and Daniel. Ashley looks absolutely cute in this picture! ;)

The Happy Chefs!

Derek, Raymond, Daniel and Victor.

Jessica, Alicia, Ashley and me. Girl power!

Group Picture 1

Group Picture 2