150207 to 160207 (Thurs - Fri) - Band Reunion at Shujuan's place


Thursday morning didn't exactly get off to a good start. Another casualty by one who chose convenience over everything else. i'm talking about jay walking. You know, almost everybody (including myself of course) would jay-walk across the road just outside my house just to get to the bus stop. The problem is, this won't deter people from performing similar actions in future. How fragile life truly is. I recalled this other old man in his mid 70s (the article was on the papers) who died just because he chose convenience. He paid it with his life. I guess, some risks are just not worth taking right? Or are they?

Met Shujuan before the even to prepare the food for the evening, was joined shortly by Daniel and the rest of the gang - Chee Weng, Sharon BeiFang and Jarrod. We had a great dinner together, chatting about how things were going so far and how things were before. It has always been great to discuss about the band scene and how things are going so far and how we are - in one way or another involved in the band arena.


And early warm up Mah Jong session before dinner!



Don't we love group shots!

So a random question by sj about staying over for mahjong really did become a reality! Most of us - Bei, Cheeweng, jarrod and myself stayed over (Although Jarrod slept almost throughout the gaming). It was fun, learned some new moves with the mahjong tiles including how to count the damages incurred by losing matches. Interesting!

So when everybody got the bed at about 330 am, I decided to stay up and catch a movie - The Devil wears Prada. Yup yup, a very nice show indeed. Well reflections about the show did make me think about the choices we make in life - to be consumed by the world or to take the road less travelled.

120207 - 140207 (Mon to Wed)

Spent the last 3 days over at my grandparent's place. Lots of good food and food-learning. Love it! Well, I thing the pictures will tell more about the past 3 days. Here goes!

My Ah Ma buying some groceries for lunch and dinner!

Tim checking the fishes out - just like the good old days

My Ah Gong, doing what he what he does all day - reading the papers

Tim - very satisfied with his latest purchase! And that is.....

Bomb Bag!!!!!!!!

One thing I was thinking, my grandma has lots of friends. While walking back from the market, although the distance is a really short one, we took a very long time because my grandma would meet someone else to talk to after she finished with one. Haha.

Tim hard at work

Ok, seriously, Tim's hard at work now. Haha.

And I'm hard at work too!

110207 (Sunday) Church and Soccer!

Field soccer once again! I must admit that it was one of the least tiring games I've ever played purely because I didn't really play much in it. Haha. Well I think I only played for 20+ minutes in total, but hey, it was really about the fellowship! The other team were really strong and big but hey, we did manage to pull off a couple of stuns but were unable to fight back from a poor second half start. We lost 5-2. I must thank God for the opportunity to speak to Daryl, haven't spoken to him in a long time and I think it's so good to have that kind of fellowship. Although we didn't talk much because the time was running late, but I thank God for the opportunity for me to share just a little bit of life and I hope I can do some followup before I go to Sydney.

Here are a couple of shots of today!

Warming up for the match!

Halftime teamtalk - Dad not listening to the talk. Hur hur hur.

Half time teamtalk

End game discussion and finally, some rest!

Wrapping it all up in a word of prayer!

It's been quite a bit of time since my last post, part of it is because I was honestly lazy. Haha. But well then, I won't go into the details of it all, so here's a quick overview:


And so I ended off my last post with my finishing off with work, that would be friday the 2nd of feb. This week has passed so quickly. And I have no regrets on how awesome it went. Things in church and things around me.



020207 (Fri) Dinner at the One Ninety Restaurant at Four Seasons Hotel
Undisputably one of the best dinners I've ever had. My mum had vouchers from her company's dinner and dance last year so she decided to use it on us. It was really really good. Delicious Seafood, Steak (Oh, the steak was so very good!), sausages and a whole lot of delicious side dishes! MmmmMMMm!



030207 (Sat) Lunch with Ollie and my first SNL service I've been to in a long long time + a meet up with Ah Yee Trixie and family over dinner at Keppel club.
Phew, that was quite a long title. Well then, you must forgive me for not summarising my meeting with Ollie, it's a long one but a one definitely to keep for future discussions. Eeleen was giving the sermon down at SNL. Went down later to have dinner and a chat with Ah Yee Trixie and family later that evening, it was ok... Superficial, but that was really it.



040207 (Sunday) Church, a long lunch and coaching William at Chem
Church was... church. The long lunch which followed it was the thing which was interesting. I listened most of the time throughout the dialogue between Ollie and William so I can't really call it a conversation.
Went down to orchard area to give a little coaching on whatever chem and bio I still retain in my brain. Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad. I could remember most of the stuff. But when it got to the part on the big bang theory, that was way beyond my own capabilities. Haha.



050207 (Monday) Coaching Chem part 2 and a visit to Grandma's place
Met william down at the MacDonald's in Bukit Merah (that's where my Grandma stays). Did a little bit of coaching on chem, managed to cover a little bit of stuff before I had to go and meet my grandma. All in all, I think it was great to spend some time with my maternal Grand father and mother. Of course, the free Hokkien lessons and delicious food down at Bukit Merah!! Love it!



060207 (Tuesday) Coaching Chem and bio part 3, meet up with Wen Hann and dinner over at Ah Khoo Tony's place
No work = lots of time to spend with people!
Couldn't really help much this time with the chem and bio, but william did return the favour by giving some tips for playing the keyboard. It was good, but I can't believe how lazy I am! I can't even be bothered to open my case to practice just a little bit!



Met up with an old friend from BMT who happens to be doing Medicine. We met down at this tea place near Maxwell food centre. We had a very good chat about medicine, the courses, how things would go after graduating, about the life a doctor here in singapore amidst all the noise the primary school kids (on some excursion) were makng. But I'm so glad and privileged to get that time to meet up and catch up on things.



And so our chat went on for quite a while but we finally wrapped up and I was on my way to meet my cousins down at Ah Khoo Tony's place. Was so embarrassed they were waiting for me for dinner. Good thing I felt like eating some indian rojak for dinner so i bought a little in for them as well. Now that really did make them forget that I was late in the first place! Muahaha *evil laughter* !!!! But what went on later was that we became engaged (somehow the HS was leading our conversation) in a discussion about christianity, about the sermons Ps Prince gives, how to lead people to Christ a whole lot of other stuff. It was so good to finally hear all of us speaking these things. God's really doing something great and time will tell and allow the fruits to be shown.



070206-080206 (Wed to Thurs) Staying over at Grandparents' place
Now, not having enough of monday, I came back again to grandparents' place. It was a nice experience, going marketing every morning, learning some nice cooking stuff - chicken curry and prawn noodles!! Love it! It was also good to pick up some new Hokkien vocabulary. And I'm sure grandparents really enjoyed that time.


Prawn Noodles!


090206 (Fri) - home sweet home
Another friday, and one of the rare occasions I have had to spend time at home. It was very very poorly spent especially with all that computer games around - dota. I'm definitely going to delete that rubbish game before I get to Sydney! Ugh!
Also spent time over at Uncle See Peng's house because it was Samuel and Daniel's birthday.

100206 (Sat) - Surprising Mel at his place!
And so it was Mel's birthday on thursday but all of us (in the cell) deliberately 'forgot' about it. We were supposed to meet at his place at 0800 just before he woke up. And so Matt (who's the ever so faithful chauffeur, haha, but really, all that wouldn't be done without him) gave us a lift down to Mel's place, where Daniel opened the door us to let us in for the surprise. Well, it wasn't the best of surprises, but he was really happy. He was even more surprised to see Lander there! Haha, it's not very likely for Lander to be there so early in the morning. We proceeded to eat breakfast over at the Ya Kun coffee shop place. But the highlight of the morning was really the conversation we had over at their place. Where we were led to share the plans for accountability between us. It was truly an awesome time, a pity I can't spend the time seeing the growth process, but God is good and it's just the start of greater things to come!

Sunday service practice followed in the afternoon with a CA gathering down at Uncle See Peng's place again. It was great getting to join all the guys in fellowship there. Almost got the opportunity to speak with Jeremy, but I would think that it wasn't God's timing.

The End of this Road

A note to all...

Dear all, I must apologise that due to a personal decision and a mutual agreement by several parties, this blog will cease to continue after I return to Sydney from 24th February 2007. Thank you for your viewership and inputs. It's been great blogging in the past year. I would be glad to answer any of these queries personally.

Thank you once again and auf wiedersehen!
Ben

010207 (Wednesday)

Lunch

Had the privilege of having lunch with a collegue and mum at Harry's bar. I must say that the food and the ambience there was really good! I had an awesome time talking about everything under the sun, church, work, life in general.

And yes, this would be my last week at work!! Yay!! Finally, time for a good rest at home. No more early morning wakeup calls from my dad. Haha.

Soccer at the Stadium - The last match at the Kallang stadium - Singapore vs Thailand!!!

Once again, I was prepared to cheer the underdogs in a match which (i felt) was a definite gonner. But once again, though not as exciting as the last one, the atmosphere and the crowd had the energy and enthusiasm to transform one into a patriot! The game got off to a good start with one of our guys scoring a nice opener.

I loved the atmosphere, the jeering especially. Jeering the Thailand fans, the Thailand team (jeering them for whatever they did - whether they were standing or squirming in 'agony' on the floor after a tackle. But who can forget about jeering the corner kickers were walking towards their respective corner flags to take the kick) and the referee (who was Malaysian, haha). But of course, why would I leave out the cheering! All that cheering for the Singapore players was phenomenal, full of zest and explosive zeal. 'We want goal! We want goal!'

I must admit that the Singapore setpieces from their dead ball oppunities were extremely pathetic, no coordination and teamwork. But overall, they did play much better than they did against Malaysia. I loved every bit of the action!

Looking in intense anticipation!

But of course! The controvertial penalty resulting in uproar in the thai camp was a moment not to be missed! With the constant jeering at the thai team throughout the 15 minutes of disarray. But hey, we did have time to sneak in a group photo! Loved every moment of it! And here it is! Those present were - Matt, Zelig, Shawn, Eugene, Keith, Dennis, Jia Le, Carrine, Jacintha, Dean, Hazel, Jerome, Jonathan, Stanley, Samantha and a host of other people whom I was quite unfamiliar with.

Group shot - take 1!

Group shot - take 2!

Cheers!

Ben

260107 (Friday) - A sumptious seafood with the whole family

Ah yes, another hard day of work and another awesome seafood dinner with Dad, Mum and Tim (who is mostly absent from our regular dinners). Had delicious chili crab (this was the only thing from the sea at our sumptious seafood dinner, haha), sweet and sour pork, you tiao and a vege dish (can't really remember what we had though). Ooh, that was so good! We did have a good time chatting too.

270107 (Saturday)

Woke up late for cell Sat morning. Met Mel, Gabe, Daniel and Jeremiah there. We had a short (because I was late, I only caught the last part of it), but it was really good. Then we headed down to Raffles City because Daniel was hoping to buy this bag. So we decided to pop by this doughnut store down in the basement, apparently it's pretty good. And guess what? People were already queueing there before the store opened! Ugh! Can you believe it? It's madness!

A picture of madness!!!

Went down to church for practice for Sunday. Aunty Rachel was leading worship that sunday. Aunty Rachel's a really great leader, she teaches at my old secondary school - AC Barker Road. It's something about her humility and her down-to-earth way of empathising with you when she talks to you. When she's leading worship and when she want something done, there's this 'command aura' so to speak when she asks us of something. It's quite amazing really. Not only does she stay 'up there' as a leader, she also comes down to get involved with us by being interested in what we were interested in - soccer. She was calling Matt that evening while we were at the match to ask 'hey matt, how's the match?' and really getting involved. Then she added on Sunday, 'I understand why you guys are a little late this morning judging what time the match ended last night, you guys had a good time?' It's this genuine passion to be involved which I'm so impressed about. And she didn't agree with us on anything like some leaders do to get you on their side, she would also add her comments about the issues we were discussing about and give us a Christlike answer. It's a great lesson to learn Ben.

Be genuine.

Singapore vs Malaysia!!!

Honestly, before the match, I was preparing quite a bit of something to say if the media would come to me for an interview (just for fun).

So if it all worked out, it would go something like,

Media: 'so how do you think the match will fare?'

Me: 'according to the tactical analysis of the match, the home ground advantage singapore match which complements the high morale from the Laos game... blah blah'

Media: 'so do you think singapore will win (sounding excited)?

Me: 'No'

........anti climax..... it would be better if it were live on tv. hahaha. I bet i'll be on youtube! haha.

Raining before the match with Daniel Wee in the foreground and zelig in the background.

But you know, from the moment the malaysian fans came into the stadium to the end of the match, the incessant jeering of the Malaysian team and their fans and the cheering of the Singapore team really united all the Singaporean fans there.

The Malaysian fans entering the stadium and recieving a warm welcome! Booooooooo!!!!!!!!

Went there as the advanced party with Francis, Zelig and Daniel Wee to book seats at the gallery. Didn't get grandstand seats because they were completely sold out! But guess what? We got seats in the ADULT gallery *wink wink*!!!

the $6 Adult Gallery Seats! It doesn't get any cheaper than this!

And so we reached there after following the huge crowd at 6pm, 2 hours before the match! The weather, it seemed then, was rather unforgiving. However the rain then came to a halt (Praise God!) and then the fans started pouring in. So I'll skip all that waiting and 'chope-ing' seats for everyone and jump to the highlights of the match. Needless to say, the Kallang wave and the Kallang stomp (if that's what you call it, when you stomp your feet on the ground which makes the whole stadium resonate with quite an awesome man-made roar without any sound our our mouths really) was performed.

And so the game started off, we mainly jeered the Malaysians, which was really cool. Everytime the Malaysians got the ball, we would jeer and taunt them. When they missed a shot on goal, some guys would turn to the malaysian fans and taunt them by miming 'no goal' remarks with hand signals included. It was really hilarious so see the pityful retaliation from the supporters of our opposition being overshadowed the sheer numerical advantage we had. Hey, I do sound like a patriot already don't I? It was really the atmosphere. I believe it was the best match I've ever seen live. The energy from the supporters really transforms you from a critic to a, not-so-critical critic... haha...

oh, I must add this, do you know why the last penalty kick taker took such a soft shot? Besides jeering at every malaysian penalty kick taker, we also did the 'stomping thing' to scare the last malaysian penalty kick taker. The pressure was incredibly high and I think the guy could have just pissed in his pants right there and then, it was incredible he could even take a shot on goal!

Well then, I think everybody really enjoy each other's companionship and adrenalin was really running at full capacity in the National stadium and out of it. Everybody was responding to the chant going to the rhythm of 'pee pee, pee pee pee, pee pee pee pee, pee pee'...'bu***!' I was telling my dad, 'hey dad, I've learnt a new Malay word today!' but was quite sian diao to find out it was actually a vulgar word. haha. Well then.... that's that.

Everybody loves an awesome group shot!

Who's there?

Wendy, Keith, Carrine, Me, Francis, Zelig, Jason, Jia Jie, Dean, Dennis, Daniel Wee, Jerome, Jonathan, Jia Le, Stanley!

A sneak peak of the match!

The National Stadium packed to capacity! More than 55,000 people turned up I reckon~!

The Malaysian fans had so much squabbling amongst themselves the police had to use themselves as barricades so they wouldn't have done anything out of hand. Wierd!

Just outside the stadium - the energy in the cheering was awesome!

280107 (Sunday)

I think the two highlights for the day was my meeting with Reuben and another gathering with the Ex 46 SAR cell group members.

Meeting up with Reuben

Reuben's was one of my cell group members. I think he's been someone I could recognise the most with. Based on lifestyle and influence. But I'm glad we did have a great time to catch up with one another, share our concerns and encourage each other. We also went down to Swee Lee at bras basah for some band stuff window shopping. haha.

Ex - 46 SAR cell group members

Met up with David Khoo, David Yap, Richard, Jonathan and Samuel in the evening down at novena for a western-style dinner. It was excellent, we chatted about life and how were were doing now. David and Sam are currently working because they actually disrupted from their NS due to their scholarship quite some time ago. So they're actually 5 years my senior. It's so amazing, Sam's already getting married this year! So well, anyway I do like chatting with David sometimes because of his vast knowledge about history and war tactics (which weren't exactly my forte, but it's kind of 'taste acquiring' for me), I'm slowly beginning to appreciate that kind of stuff.

So then, we did have a good time afterwards of sharing about how God has been so good to use throughout the year and the challenges we had and are having. I though it was really good that we could catch up like that without any barriers because of our common goal - to serve God and give Him the glory! So all in all, that was an amazing week for me! 3 weeks to go before I return to Australia and there's still so much more to enjoy! Woo Hoo!!

200107 - Breakfast @ Bras Basah Macs - sending Gilbert off to NZ for training

Another incredible meeting with the guys from our cell. Gilbert organised this meeting to see himself off... haha, how funny. Well anyway, we did get down to some great fellowship. You know, I really feel this is the kind of fellowship we should have everytime we meet. It was really good stuff!

Now now, this also turned out to be our first meeting on how to bring us closer as a group, closer as a small 'church' if you may call it. The spontaneity was awesome!
Ok, down to the minutes of our conversation:

________________________________________________
Date : 200107 (Saturday)
Attendance : Mel, Matt, Gabe, Gilbert, Daniel, Ben

Ok before I go on further, God is the centre of our desire for this community. To know Him more and to do His will is our goal. Holy Spirit fill us!

The 3 factors we need for building up this community are:
- Spontaneity
- Committment
- Structure

We identified that the thing we as Christians did seem to lack as compared to our presaved friends is time. We did a simple calculation which included the amount of TIME spent on sunday service and ministry and the number of hours spent was quite overwhelming for just 2 days!

Now, in order to create more time to nurture and build this community, we could do a few things:
- free time up from our other ministries in church
- spend time together doing the mundane but inescapable things in life - e.g. studying

With this extra time freed and with God's guidiance, time and effort in our 1) fellowship and 2) bible study meetings, God willingly there will be a greater spontaneity in being accountable with each other.

We did ponder upon our meetings on Sunday - about our superficial level of communication. This 'superficiality', I feel, has allowed us to become complacent with our level of friendship and being satisfied with that. Also along the lines of ministry on sunday, we often we do so much in ministry not really enjoying it all the time. We need time to relax and enjoy one another's fellowship.

Forseeable problems
- time clashing with meetings with our friends in the evenings e.g. friends from school....
- Saturday mornings - lazyness to wake up
- Clashing in the erratic school timetables

What to do now?
Structure
- bible study fortnightly
- fellowships every other week
Committment
- possibly the need to give up a ministry we're currently in
Spontaneity
- just let things happen!
- pray pray pray!!!

Tentative plan: Meetings on Saturday mornings
Next meeting: to discuss specifically what ministry to drop and when to meet?


And here we have it - Step 1 to building a community.

250107 (Thursday)
Had dinner with Nicholas, Paul and Andrew over at PS at the manhattan fish market down at PS. Yup, we did have a good time talking about all sorts of nonsense and funny stuff, not forgetting all the med things.
I think the highlight for the day would be the time spent reading 'Knowing God' by J.I. Packer while waiting for the guys down at PS. Managed to cover 2 chapters!! Yay! I know, I'm a slow reader. So anyway, I'll be writing a review (I hope I can because there's just so many things in there which are so good!) when I finish it. For your info, I haven't even got the half the book so hang in there!

230107 - Dinner with the Ex-46 Signal Platoon guys



I think this was the only meeting I've had with so many of them being present! Hmmm, who was there? Ok, Hong Joo, Andrew, Victor, Ming Zhi, Weifeng, Kaiquan, Chun Hoo, WeiQiang, Weibin, Chit Chin, Wenhao, Jingliang, Jun Ren (who had to leave early) and Shiqing (who was going to leave for the US following his winter break here). We met at Cafe Cartel to send ah poh off, and yes, lots of freeee bread there! You know I was just telling my mum, being kiasu is a trait of every Singaporean. We are ENTITLED to take EXTRA of everything! But hey, that's what we're made of! Sure, you can start trying to be more 'ang moh' by being more 'refine' but hey, enjoy your life!!!! Wooo hooo!!! Well than, back to the dinner. Was quite surprised that JL was going to put his studies on hold this year to pursue his tuition business. Very very impressive I must say. Here's some advertisement for him ----> http://tp.com.sg/main.php
He's the most enterprising friend (around my age that is) I've ever had, amazing stuff. He used to teach me some financial stuff back in 46 - how to trade stock options and all that kind of stuff. And as usual, ah poh was going on being really funny all night long. Oh yes, and found out that Jun Ren was going to come down to Australia (Melbourne to be exact, booooo!) this feb.
All in all, I must say that I really did have good time with the guys.


240107
I was just checking out this website - blogtv.sg, it's a local site featuring bloggers. This week's episode was about bloggers who went throught some tough times with illness like cancer and blogged about it.

I was reading this other guy's blog, also featured on the show --> http://morethanpain.blogspot.com/. He was describing how incompetent doctors were in the treatment of his sister and how she died because of what he calls their 'irresponsibility' and 'negligence'. I must agree that it was truly an excruciating ordeal but his angst did slap me on the face for a moment there. It did remind me about how unforgiving the people are out there when disaster strikes, yes, sometimes they really can't help it. Well then Ben, another learning lesson!

I was very impressed with Daniel's blog -->http://jesusfreakdl.diaryland.com/ . I got down to reading it from the very start, about how he was diagnosed with bone cancer. I only got down to the first 3 months of the blog and it's already been such an amazing story. But the thing which really caught my attention was how his faith in God was so strong despite the ordeal from being diagnosed to the numerous chemotherapies. Now that was really awesome!

Some time earlier... heresy?
Some time earlier I was pondering about my conversation with someone. It was about this show she really liked - Oprah Winfrey show. Excellent show I must say. I did a wikipedia search on Oprah's life story. A very traumatising and poor background he did have, and I suppose that's why she's so passionate in helping people, especially women and children who are in poverty and in similar situations as she was in. She has since become the most influential woman in the world. But I was thinking, yes, she's a great philantropist and all her altruistic efforts are very impressive, but what's the catch here? That person I was chatting with did mention that Oprah was such a great person in anybody's eyes that 'she must be a Christian'. Now now, I'm not slamming anybody here, but I'm just curious how one (not necessarily the person I was chatting with) could possibly look to Oprah as a source of comfort and link it with Christianity. I mean, it's totally fine to emulate the deeds that she does, but what is the underlying principle she lives by which could sway someone into thinking that Oprah is living as a christian.
I did a little reading up over the net, apparently oprah does not believe in Jesus ---> http://www.watchman.org/oprah.htm but in something else. I kept questioning myself what was going on, what then does she believe in? But of course! The New Age Movement! In that video, she notes that everyone will have their own 'gods' and they will some how lead to the same universal source. Here we see a form of heresy which has truly masked itself from its original form - hinduism! Sounds wierd? Read up a little about the New Age movement ---> http://www.carm.org/newage.htm.
Now, please don't be mistaken, my intention is not to slam oprah winfrey or anyone who wants to emulate her actions. I would really like to create an awareness that although her actions are good, the driving force is different. The animated series Futurama alluded to her spiritual influence by suggesting that, a thousand years from now, a religion known as "Oprahism" exists (wikipedia, 2007). Yes, go on, have a good laugh. But really it indicates that some people are actually treating it as sort of a religion now (perhaps only unknowlingly). Think about it...

Be discerning.

210107 (Sunday) - Soccer frenzy!

After the Chelsea - Liverpool game the night before, we did have an awesome time at Bishan some time in the evening with some street soccer! I must say, the turn out was awesome. Quite a lot of people came... of those I can remember - Matt, Daniel Wee (crazy lar, you want to break your leg by tackling like that ar? haha), Jia Le, Jia Jie, Jerome, Keith, Shawn, Dean, Hutch, Jasper, Dennis, Tim, Kenneth and Dad. It was really tiring but totally worth it. It was awesome to see the guys bonding and having so much fun at the same time.

The day of soccer wasn't over when we watched the Man U - Arsenal match in the late evening. Matt and Kenneth came over.. It was a nice game...until the end...Sian diao, I'm not going to stay up to watch another man u match man! Can't believe they conceeded 2 goals to lose the match in the last 12 minutes!!!