Jobb's Blog

Friday, July 03, 2009

**Avantasia - Reach Out For The Light**

Avantasia - Reach Out For The Light

Verse 1

Lord above - why don't you tell me
why I'm here in agony?
I've been serving, I've been praying
now I'm caught in misery.

I've been praised by friar Jakob,
I misused his confidence.
Cheated by this work of evil -
feigning Anna's innocence.

Pre-chorus (2 stanzas sung simultaneously)

Oh (We should bring salvation,)
what have I done? (not give in to his temptation - no!)
So many ways lead to the fallen one, (Read and preach the holy world)
Lucifer, fallen light... (and no forbidden lies that hurt.)
Oh what have I done? (I remember words of "seven".)
What is going on? (Set me free - sanity! -)

Chorus

Reach out for the light
far beyond confines.
You have read the magic lines
leading to the light in your mind...

Verse 2

What is right and what is wrong now?
Is it a trial of paradise?
Is Anna a witch or do they stick to an error?
What's the book and the seal inside?

Am I a cleric or maybe a sinner?
Unbeliever? Renegade?
Was it the devil who led me to "seven"?
Oh Redeemer is it all too late?

Pre-Chorus

Oh (We should bring salvation,)
what have I done? (not give in to his temptation - no!)
I have been led by the smelling one, (Read and preach the holy world)
Lucifer, fallen light... (and no forbidden lies that hurt.)
Tell me stranger, what have I done? (I remember words of "seven".)
Oh What is going on? (Set me free - sanity! -)

Chorus
Reach out for the light
far beyond confines.
You have read the magic lines
leading to the light in your mind...

This song says all that I'm struggling in now. Though the problem He face is different, I'm feeling exactly what he sung - those in italics.

Funny this coming from a non-christian metal band.

God I need to get out of this.

Shuffled at | 9:43 AM

Monday, October 27, 2008

**The Omega Post**

Hey all avid readers [I doubt I have any haha] and visitors.

This is the final post for this blog. I am closing it down.

But fret not, you can still read up about me at this new URL.

http://thebsandthevs.blogspot.com/

Cya there.

Shuffled at | 12:06 AM

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

**Surgery Misery**

After a long time of rest from the blogging technology, I have finally decided to blog on something special.

I just got discharged from hospital today from a surgery known as the Bilateral Endoscopic Thoracic Sympathectomy Surgery. In simple words, it's a surgery to deal with excessive sweating of both palms. Haha. Anyway, the entire surgery took about 2 hrs, minus my waiting time and recovery time.

Let me recount to you my experience. Yesterday, I was scheduled for surgery at 9.30am. However, it dragged to about 10.15am before I was wheeled into the operating theater. Upon reaching there, I had to wait for about yet another hour. Apparently, there were some scheduling problems.

My thoughts and feeling shifted from being nervous and expectant [as this was my first surgery] to anxious and restless. Every additional minute of waiting made me even more fidgetive. I just wanted the surgery to be done quickly so that I can see the end results.

However, I didn't let the waiting time go to waste too. I took some time to pray for some people, sang praises to God and made known my thoughts and feelings to Him.

As soon as I was done with that, it was my turn to say Goodbye to Mister sweaty palms. All I could remember from here on was that a muscular male nurse ran 3 small bottle of anesthesia into my bloodstream, through the drip that he prepared earlier. And I K.Oed.

Before I know, 2 hours passed and I woke up with a severe tightness and pain in my chest. The pain was excruciating. It felt like an Alien chestbuster was about to burst out from my chest. I could hardly talk. A nurse then assured me that it was normal and told me to take deep breaths to expand the lung. [In case, you're wondering why my chest hurts? Here's why. There's this vessel that controls the sweat glands of the hand, and coincidentally governs some parts of your face as well i.e. the eyelids. So in order to work on that vessel, your lungs needs to be collapsed. Now that the lungs needs to be expanded back, it needs air.] Together with a breathing aparatus [that provides oxygen], I followed the nurse's instructions and the pain simmered down. Still, the pain is there, just lesser. The pain is gonna last for the following 13 days. But I tell you, the breathing aparatus is irritating. It's shafted into your nostrils, causing pain there. But you cannot do without it, because that means your lungs have to work harder to obtain more oxygen. And you know what, more pain in the chest.

Alright enough complaints. I shall move on because it's not the end yet. =]

After everything was done and settled, another nurse informed my mom about my condition and that she could now visit me. Really Thank God for her. She accompanied me and patiently waited over 3 hours, til about 2pm, to see me. Still, she didn't grumble but broke a smile when she saw me.

Some time after, a friend of mine came to visit me while my mum went to collect medication for me. Despite telling her repeatedly not to buy anything for me, she stubbornly ignore it and bought me some snacks. But I know she bought it out of love and concern for a friend. Thanks a lot! Xing Ling le.

What was amazing was what followed. Andrew came to visit me after he made a call to me a few hours earlier. He even brought me a book to read and we shared hearts for a while until I was tired and needed some sleep. Thank you too! Thanks for sacrificing your nights-out for someone not even in the same group as you.

Thanks God for those who took out time and their smses to keep me entertained during the night when I can't sleep too.

Ultimately, thanks be to the God Almighty who gave men the wisdom to create a cure for sweaty palms and the opportunity for me to be healed of this condition safely.

Shuffled at | 5:45 PM

Monday, April 21, 2008

**Saturday - Jamming day; Caregroup day!**

Last Saturday was great though it was a bit tiring and quite suay.

It started with jamming at 10.30am. The studio we used is located at Little India. It's called Velvet Joint. It's my first time there and it didn't leave me a good impression. The guitar amps were problematic. The one I used had some connectivity issue. Sometimes your sound gets cut off without reason. The other one could not even produce any sound. The house guitars are bad too. They had rusty strings which makes it hard to press the frets.

And the reason I used the house guitar was because I very suay. One of my guitar strings snapped while I was playing. Then I went on to use one of the (three) house guitars. The first string snapped while tuning!! The other 2 house guitars also had their first string missing (not I do one). In the end, I had to made do with that house guitar.

Anyway, one of the songs we jammed was 海阔天空 by Beyond. It's a power ballad with a very nice melody. And Zac can really sing this song! I was pleasantly surprise!! I thought with his (good) standard of English, dialect would be a problem for him. But No, he broke the language barrier and bring out the flavour of the song. Great job Zac!

During the jam, we took some photos too. And here's Red Dagger (copyrighted)!

This is Zac - Lead vocals and Guitar

Char - Bass and Keyboards

me - Guitar

Red Dagger!
(Antonio - Drums)
Also, every picture here was taken in Velvet Joint though it don't look like it.

There you have Red Dagger! haha

Alright, after jamming, I had to rush for caregroup music practice as I was the guitarist. It's the first I have in 7 months. Wow right? It shows how busy and time-tight NSF/Nsman are. So if you have caregroup meeting every week (or almost), you really should appreciate it.

I was really excited for caregroup and praise God it was better than expected. The game led by Wei Siang was really lame and funny! We could use this opportunity to suan one another, or at least I did. Oh, I think I was the only one.. haha.

Up next was holy communion which had a fresh idea. All thanks to Jovin and John. Thank God for these guys. They came out with the idea of introducing a new nut (Jovin really brought a whole lot of them). Jovin then gave a nut to each one of us and asked everyone to guess.

This is the nut.
(Clue given was: The raw form is not sold in Singapore.)
Do not peeked at the answer just yet. Try!

Upon (everyone) failing to guess it right, Jovin and John then revealed the answer.

It's a Pecan nut.

If you guessed it right, give yourself a pat.

They then explained the rationale of using the Pecan nut. The Pecan Nut has a very hard husk covering the soft edible nut inside. The hard husk symbolizes our stubbornness and reluctance. The nut inside represents our heart. We need to break this hard husk in order for God to enter our hearts.

I pondered about what they say. At that time, I was trying to understand why God needs to enter our hearts. This is what I got. In order for the Pecan nut to be made useful, it needs to shed it's husk. Who can smell the fine aroma or taste the crunchy roasted nut, if the Pecan nut does not shed its husk. The Pecan nut can be added to delicacies (like your ice-cream or famous Amos cookies) only if it breaks out of the shell. If not, who can eat the nut with the husk on?

In the same way, our hearts can be refined and made useful only when the reluctance and stubbornness is broken down.

Testimony lead by Jansen was also great. I think it was one of his few time leading and I think he did great! Thank God for him too! Almost everyone shared their testimony on their Sowing progress. It was like an unplanned theme.. haha

That's it.
I'm looking forward to the next caregroup meeting!!

Shuffled at | 12:53 PM

Sunday, April 13, 2008

**Planetshakers and Tim Hughes Concert**

I went for the Planetshakers+Tim Hughes concert last night. As a concert, it was fun but not really that fun. While Planetshakers used many stage gimmicks, their music sounded exactly like the album, which is not why people go to concerts. But as a worship session, it was really a spirit-filled one. I thank God for the vocalist of Planetshakers ( I don't know his name, but he has a Tekong haircut) who set the right direction for the people who came to see their concert. He said, " We're not here to see a concert but we've come to church to worship God." With this sentence, the people's heart changed.

I must admit that initially I came to see solos and to learn from the guitarists. I even chose the most strategic (and available) seat together with another brother to get a good view of the guitarist. However, that line by the vocalist changed my motive. Throughout the concert, I did not even observe the guitarist. I just wanted to praise and worship God and be totally immerse in His presence.

There's also something else from the concert that I learnt and thought deeply about - that is worship is FOR God. While during your worship, you may feel good and enjoy worship (the feeling, the music etc). You feel that everything centers around you. However, the "enjoyment" is actually a bonus from God when you worship Him. That is because worship is supposed to center around God. Or simply put, God is the center of worship. He is the reason, the theme of every (Christian) song. So worship, de facto, is for God to enjoy. But because He is so good and wants us to enjoy with Him in worship, He gives us a share of this enjoyment.

Alright, I'll end off with Tim Hughes. Personally, I likethe words of His song. The lyrics of his song is really unconventional. Similarly, the melodies to the words are nice but unorthodox too. Now I know why Hope church(Tertiary) don't use his praise songs during praise and worship. Laughs!

Shuffled at | 1:06 AM