I still love SMU because there are lost souls there

Felt horrible in school: 3 days, 11hrs of lessons.
Possibly due to the amount of expectations I placed upon myself. Or perhaps, it was the inability to blend in with the fast paced likfestyle and competitiveness of SMU summer term courses. Or so it seems.

I find myself unable to contribute to the class discussions except for the times when the prof mentioned about those who have yet to speak up (me). My lips felt so tight. The throat was dry. It was as though my thoughts couldn't convert themselves into verbal content. The prof also placed his benchmark on writings. If you're able to get him to value your writings, then you're probably someone that can score decently well. An least at an A region. So it's all about how good you are able to communicate literally.

A 4th year student feeling that way in a school like SMU. Sounds unlike-able and weird. What's been happening over the many semesters of trainings? No idea. Hah, I can only take a step back and see people vie for class participation marks. Getting themselves excluded from friends' acceptance and the prof's tolerance for nonsense was no problem, so long as they grab that 20% worth of grades for participation. I'm not against the system, neither am I being sour about it. That's just the hard cold truth. You too, will face it. It's an emerging trend.

Do we strive that hard for Jesus?
I feel so ashamed. This plight was not a choice, it was out of ignorance. Pillars have changed into pillows. Yet it's not too late, there's a 2nd chance. Once you see it, seize it. Feel it. Own it. And it's yours to keep so long as you pay the price. And yes, I want to pay that price because of its worth.

My appetite's changed. Striving for grades has lost its flavour. Getting 'A's are good, but they're not the best. My goal is heavenward. For where my heart is, there my treasures shall be. Where no thief can steal nor moths can destroy. That, is my reward. That, is also my new found taste bud.

I, can be a writer. You can too. But of what genre do I write in? And of which audience do I seek to capture their attention? Of which audience would be attracted anyway? Some day, this article will be re-read. The pictures will be shown. No memory too great can contain it because our hearts and minds are just too distracted. Too whisked and whizzed away by the beauty of the wind.

Help me Lord. May I, too, one day overhear the conversation You would hold with Your dear Son. You did that once and it changed the life of a young man. You are capable of doing it again. For I know, that will turn the eyes of my heart towards You, and only You.

God honours those who honour Him - even in little things

I saw a futsol soccer ball priced at $19.90, after discount at Sports Link.. *Bling bling, eyes sparkled and my hands reached out to the unicard to foot the bill.

Excited over the first ball I have ever owned, I tried to 'Joga Bonito' in the tiny room of mine. Within 5 minutes, I broke a standing thermometer from aussie land. What's left, were the measurements. Alcohol filled half the table. Together with it, the glass of warm water spilled too. (ArhHhhhh....) My attention was on the precious thermometer since it's not available locally. But hey, the laptop was there too! The bottom of the laptop got wet, so did the K750i.

Almost immediately, I switched to *Panic* mode. Frantically trying to grab table cloths from the kitchen to soak up the water. I ran into the toilet, left the laptop there and made sure it's dry. But nope, it was wet inside. And it went BLANK on me!! The On/Off couldn't work either. (Heh, I started to think of which laptop I wanna buy the following week since I need it for school. IMac? HP? Or the Lenovo series? Then I realised that elgin's bank account is extremeeeeeeeeeely low now.) And I woke up from my idea.

After clearing up the mess...it was time for Q.T. Then I turned to the hp, and saw that it was also wet inside the case. I almost lost my breathe. The very first new phone I owned was about to say its goodbye to me too. The speakers couldn't work properly due to the water content in it.
*Just then, God spoke and told me to spend time w Him first. He will settle the laptop and the hp. And so I did. And went on to pray for the laptop and the phone. I seriously cannot afford to have them die on me now.
After an hour of reading, I remembered both the items. And I went to test them.

I couldn't help it but laugh, because I was overjoyed.

To me, it's a miracle. To God, it's normal and just fulfilling His promise to me.

1. The handphone speaker were LOUD and CLEAR when I played some music. It was as though no water touched it at all.
2. The laptop suddenly CAME BACK TO LIFE. It started running and I began to type this testimony.

I want to THANK and PRAISE GOD for His faithfulness and giving me this chance to increase my FAITH a/c with Him!

God heals e Nokia Engage's button, He heals the laptop too!

yeah! He is CoOl.

Voice clip

I have a voice clip recorded over the phone.

It went: "(blahblah....) i'm a chicken and i'm weak." Not once, but twice. It was said when a challenge was turned down. And so, being challenged to post the clip online, here i am. In the next few days, you will be able to hear it, lest I change my mind.

You must be wondering who's involved in the conversation...but all I can say is that K750i comes in pretty HANDY when you need it.

Yeah!

Ipoh Hor fun!

I'm back! And back with more energy, all thanks to the never ending tim sum breakfast.

Let me recap:

1. Ipoh Hor Fun

2. Lard Noodles (Pastor Ben enjoys it lots)

3. Rat noodles

4. Chicken Rice with ENORMOUS bean sprouts

5. Steam Boat in the cold

6. Popiah --> it just tastes different, and nicer.

7. Morning Shoot at Cameroon Highlands--> Amateur photographers vs Lee Family

8. Glad Sounds with 50% discount on books

9. And yes, the 8hrs to and fro journey.

And here are the pictures:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=7e7d82d.skfv5pp&Uy=li0q2t&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

I simply stand in awe of the beautiful scenary as I behold sights which I only see on TV. As you stand there over some 20minutes or so, the sun takes its time as it rises over the mountains..creating streaks of purple, blue, pink over the skies of Cameroon highlands. No, I don't see that in east coast. As I stood at the tea plantation, frantically trying to frame a nice shot of the sunrise, Jason's dad took out his tripod and went straight to the choice spot. He stood there over the span of 20minutes and emerged satisfied with the few shoots he took. That's what I call a pro. While we were snapping away, vehicles were already climbing from the foot of the hill. These vehicles whizzed pass us and continued to climb the steep ascent. Overlooking the undulating plains, workers have already started work...that was as early as 7am.

The pace is slow, nobody races to get back to their offices and clinch the first deal of the day. As late as 1030am, you will still see adults strolling into the coffee shops to absorb their daily intake of caffeine and bread. And yes, as early as 2pm, you will also see aunties packing up and calling it a day from their work! There was no rush, except for the well known 'malaysian' type of driving. Now that was fast.

Food was not an issue. Good food was. The place where we stayed was not too far from all the action. 10mins walk will do. And so, we came into our first contact with food. Ipoh Hor Fun..and the lard noodles. Imagine yourself holding onto a spoon, you simply scoop the noodles into that tiny surface on the spoon....Lo and Behold, you will find a piece of lard in it. The probability of one finding this brown piece of hardened oil is almost 1. And I'm amongst those who fall into this category of probability. Anyway, I didn't eat it. I got to put in the effort to rescue the body and tummy. (haha..)

And so, the 4 days trip came to an end with Rat Noodles. Some of us were wondering if they have Cat noodles in Ipoh...then we can treat the cat's tail to that.

"Wo wo wo wo wo...waitttt a minute...Loo loo loo loo look guys, let's not get started." That was the catch phrase during the trip. Even the dogs went wo woo woo woo woof! Don't be confused, ask Yhaun Foo. Yhaun Foo should know best. (Somebody please comrade me!) "Ok ok ok, I tell you everything.." Ha, enough private jokes lest someone starts talking about elitism again.

And so, apart from food, the beautiful scenary at the tea plantation caught most of my attention. It's amazing how one can stare at such scenary and then comment on the beauty of it. I mean, who taught you to appreciate such things? Did the Creator teach you how to appreciate His Creation?

It really got me thinking...if no one ever taught you to appreciate the sunrise, sunset, etc., then how would one come to the conclusion that it's pleasing to the eyes? Wouldn't it be due to the fact that creation is so beautiful that it led the human being to confess the awesomeness of it?

Yeap, check out the pictures. The cameras that we used, d.t and myself, probably did injustice to the colours of the flowers and sunrise. But hey, we tried out best. Enjoy...

Paul Washer has a story to tell u

True preaching does not “fire up” the flesh, but reforms the mind, revives the soul, and brings the will into subjection to the Lordship of Christ.

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=3C4D06831F85FAA0

Please spend a good time listening to it.

Flour, Sugar, Butter & Eggs

Flour, Sugar, Butter & Eggs....

That's about enough to keep one busy for the entire day. Here's a quick excerpt from my recent experience in the pastry department of a factory..

(The conversation was held in chinese)

Boss: "Just pour 3250grams of soft butter and 375grams of sugar, then let this boy mix it"

Worker: "ok"

Boss: ".....let him experience."

The conversation ended there.

Many things went through my mind. Firstly, the term 'this boy' didn't sound very appealing to me, not at this age. Nor in front of someone younger than me. (BBBC just called me a boy, and I rebuked him.. kekeke) Secondly, it got me thinking when he mentioned "experience". Well, that word sounds good for a start because I would really like to try some thing different from just pressing dough for the next 8hrs consecutively. But, the sentence ended with 'experience'. It's just weird. Even weirder than that, I began to think about what I am about to 'experience':

1. Mixing another set of dough?

2. Mixing dough with a stick?

3. Seeing the aunty mix the dough?

Gosh... I thought I had always been unclear in my instructions and explanation in things. God is fair.

Well, over the past 3 days, I have had my fair share of making sandwiches, pressing dough, making sandwiches, pressing dough, etc. In short, Pastry101. No joke, let me tell you, it's no joke. My back almost broke. (At the mention of this statement, my lil' sister went "backbroke? haha...", and I went "Mountains?"....boooo..) Standing for a straight 4 hrs with 1hr of lunch break, was enough to alter the length of elgin's backbone. Continuous bending forward and backward simply proves that it's not good for one's back. It's worse than a 5-day platoon field camp.

The only motivation was the clock. At every hour, I would look at my sister and tell her $* more. As an undergrad, in comparison to what I used to receive elsewhere, I'm severely underpaid. But nonetheless, it's all in good faith because the factory was short-handed, not because they were not tall, but there was just not enough helpers due to the overwhelming orders flooding in from NIE in the next 2 weeks.

Standing with the lower half of your body almost motionless, except for your fingers moving vigorously trying to shape the dough, can set you into a thinking mode. All of a sudden, my mind was filled with thoughts and pictures flashing before me, it brought me back to my days of old...my secondary school days. Slowly, as though a movie was set to play through my mind, I went back into the JC days..(remembering the carefree life I led, seriously carefree...too free to care about anything)....and finally year 1 of SMU.

Occassional probing of my past from my sis further plunged me deeper into those days. I remembered how I was then. The life I led, the people I mixed with, the front I put on and the mirror in which I choose to look at. It was horrible. I felt like puking but nothing came out. I could feel the emptiness.

Then I started to smile, my cheeks were strengthened...because I no longer feel that emptiness. It was taken away, then filled up. Yups, changes are still being made. But still....all these are nothing less than God's grace and mercy. I started to thank God while pressing the mixture of flour, sugar, butter and eggs. That mixture.

Suddenly, I was brought back to the clock. Tick tick tick..."another $*!"I told my sis. And it's time for lunch. I remembered how my back was about to give up on me, so I decided to reward myself with a cool and refreshing can of 100Plus. I heard it works with the effects of a panadol. haha. And so, it went straight down the throat. Lunch went through the same channel. Then it's back to work.

Man...I'm certainly not cut out for such job. I'll end up meeting Daddy God sooner than I thought. But how about those who have been there for months? Years? And they do the same thing everyday, pastry. Maybe it's for the love of it.

Before I realised, 3 days are over. 72hours! Passed by just like this. I felt robbed, of time. It slipped me by so quickly that I didn't get to properly reflect at the end of the day, simply due to the physical tiredness in the body. I needed sleep. Is this what happens to people who starts working and work becomes a toll on them?

And so, I went on pressing the dough..again and again and again...and you can say that sentence again! Haha...without knowing , I was actually caught mumbling to myself by my sister. I was complaining. I was comparing. I was just plain lazy. Then I saw the 'aunty'. We found out that she's actually a "Tai Tai" - with a well-off hubby who's a businessman. (She drives a camry to the factory to do pastries.) Cool huh. I mean, ALL the pastries. I'm impressed by her. Seriously, a Tai Tai doing that?? Most of them would be at the shops doing their manicures or facials, but she was perspiring. She had a sense of responsibility over what's put over her charge. And it's no small matter ensuring that the orders get through with the pastries ordered. We're talking about trays and trays of pastries that need to be done within the day. She caught my attention. Her attitude towards her job was great. Just great. How much better, if we as christians, live our lives that way too! I guess I have a long way to go, but I'll reach there. I have to reach there. It's part of the deal.

Flour, Sugar, Butter & Eggs. It's enough to pull one deep into work and let time slip pass. What would these people tell God when God asks them to account for their use of time? I got to give my best in all that I do. At least, try right? Put my talents into good use!

Here's a photostrip for your enjoyment. Seize your time, make it good.