my 6th month! many things afoot :)

The idea for this month's theme "Many things afoot" comes from my foot problem...
As you can see in this picture my feet (clad in the grey/pink sneakers) often gets sore and needs stretching :)
Here are two lovely sisters from my church lifegroup who are helping me to do just that :)

Yvonne (left), who will soon be my housemate :) and Shannon, my mentor

Sometime mid-Nov, the pain finally got too intense and I decided to go to a podiatry clinic

thank God it wasn't expensive because it was staffed by students - after a few appointments, I got myself a new pair of shoes (christmas present from my sisters and bro-in-law - thank you Dajie, Khim cc, and Benson kk :) and adjusted insoles that have helped relieve the pain greatly :)

Picture of my happy shiny shoes and the insoles (back and side view) here:

So now that my feet are not worrying me that much, let me tell you about other things that are afoot :)

1. Applications 

- Ethics application: I am ready to start my pilot project, but I need ethics clearance from the university. I will be working with vulnerable population (people with depression who have seen a doctor in the past 12 months) so there will be a lot of ethical issues to consider. Please pray for  wisdom for me as I finish the application (the instructions is 18 pages long...) and also favour for the application to be approved ASAP.

- Grant application: There is a chance that I may get a few thousand dollars for my research, please pray that I get the grant application in by this Sat. The proposal that I'm submitting to get this grant is from the course that I took this past semester, which received positive feedback from the course instructor (I scored high distinction for the course, praise God ;) so I am thankful and hopeful! I have finished the draft, but it needs polishing. Also pray for God's provision through this grant, if that is His will :)

2. Surprises!
haha, so I planned a few surprises this past month...one of it was for my dear ex-housie Ally, on our last full day together as housemates. She is moving closer to school and staying with her sister, will miss her! So for her surprise, I got some neighbours to come for tea and a few of us got her a bright yellow ukulele :) Here she is holding it :)

Back row from left: Michael, Dot, Peter and Ben

Ally and I also planned a surprise for our neighbour Ben, whose birthday was on Dec 8. She had a cool idea to write out bible verses onto arrows that would lead from his house to our place, where we sang him Happy bday on the guitar and ukulele (it needed more rehearsing, but Ben was very gracious to appreciate it :)

Pictures here:

awesome lemon-coconutty dessert. After we ate, we made an impromptu decision to go watch Rise of the Guardians, animated movie about Jack Frost - it was really GOOD!

And just to end off this section on surprises, here is the cheesecake that surprised me!

the idea was to make it for a friend's 30th bday. it was my first time baking a cheesecake and I had made the mistake of not reading the ENTIRE recipe (i have a bad habit of stopping after reading the ingredients :P ). I thought I could make it in 2 hours, so I left it until the morning of the surprise to make it....i get to the end of the recipe and it says the cake has to cool in the oven for TWO hours and then chill in the fridge for FOUR more hours! haha, no chance of that, the cake was still warm by the time we sang the bday song...so much so that the candles melted a bit! Hilarious I tell you :)

my friend was very gracious to still eat it, saying "what harm can a bit of wax do?" and the plate was empty by the end of the day, so THANK GOD! I resolve to read recipes COMPLETELY from now on ;)

3. setting foot on Tangalooma (AGAIN!)

yes, i know I wrote about tangalooma in my last post, but with my good friend Fuzz visiting me with his family all the way from Singapore, there was no way I could miss bringing them to my favourite place :) so here are photos from there...3D2N with them, I think I laughed more than what I laugh in a month :) Thanks for the lovely memories, guys :) you are the most FuNN (FUzz Nina Naddie) family I know :)

 4. God's word - a lamp unto my feet

While I was in tanga, God spoke to me about a situation in my life that I had been praying about. I just woke up one morning and this passage from Habakkuk 3 came to mind.
   
¹⁷ 17 Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.


I won't go into details here, you can ask me via email if you want more details :) But it has really made such a difference - it illuminated how I was seeing things...much like the moon at night :)

yes the picture below is indeed the moon (taken at about 4.20am) zooming in + different exposure shows the same moon in the next picture :)

5. Mysterious feet :)

I shall end this post with this unusual creature that I met in Tangalooma...at first I thought it was a caterpillar, but upon closer inspection, I saw the feet sticking out. Click on the video and you will see that this is no caterpillar :)

I end with this little critter because I always believe in nurturing a sense of wonder about the world :) Much as we humans know, we don't know everything, and there is always something new we can learn if we keep our eyes open :)

Have a wonderful last month of 2012 and see you in the next year!!