905th post

moved

after 5 years here, it's about time...

remembering austria

ning has been uploading a barrage of austria pictures and relating all these anecdotes that i've forgotten. she's the one with the elephant memory whereas i have the memory of a goldfish. i forgot the name of the glasshouse where we had awesome apple strudel and hot chocolate, forgot the name of the summer palaces we visited, forgot the name of the restaurant where we had amazing austrian food, forgot that i had named my lost glove Betty. but seeing all those pictures and reading all these stories just make me miss Austria so so much, especially when it was the first place in Europe outside of UK that i visited.

though there's a lot i've forgotten, there's much i remember too
- i remember being really self-conscious about taking crazy pictures initially and ning telling me that these are stuff we'll only get to do when we're young and me finally throwing all caution to the wind, stopping wherever and whenever to pose insanely

- i remember that we took silly photos in the middle of a very busy square, heckcaring the stares of passers-by

- i remember us taking A LOT of timer photos at the top of some lookout in the palace gardens (can't remember exact location haha) and one guy offering to help us take and us rejecting his offer while giggling like high school girls and me sitting on my sunglasses and breaking them in the midst of all the craziness

- i remember eating 5 scoops of ice cream for only 2plus euros, walking ever so slowly while savoring the moment of pure bliss and saying that we can just do this forever

- i remember eating at this jap place with jay chou songs in the background where i cried teared upon hearing ning talk about her family (and that's when i also realised how similar we were)

- i remember initially us being the only 2 people watching this little chinese boy breakdance in the middle of a square and thereafter causing a crowd to gather

- i remember that ning lent me her white coat cos i wasn't prepared for the cold even after wearing 6 layers

- i remember that i was really hoping to see snow fall, and ning saying that she always brings snow with her, and then me really acting like a child when i finally saw snow falling for the first time in my life 

i miss austria
i miss you even more dear friend :)

 for more austria photos,

http://julsinlancaster.blogspot.com/2008/04/vienna-austria.html
http://julsinlancaster.blogspot.com/2008/04/salzburg-austria.html

quote of the day

good girls are looking for good guys
and there is a shortage
so be that guy

i burst out laughing reading that :)

the day started off really well

and got pretty dark in the middle

but i guess it ended relatively well

so my heart is thankful...

off the chart amazing weekend

yesterday's event was SO FLIPPING AWESOME (minus the fact that i missed half of it cos i was serving at the door in the freezing cold)

94 decisions!! all made in a single night at one place..

my first time serving at PS and i really enjoyed it, though my whole body was aching at the end after all the hours of standing and smiling

Kingdom purpose: even if there was only 1 person, it would still have been absolutely worth it

and today, serving in the Mother's room during first service (yet another amazing experience)
can i just say that the best sound, THE BEST SOUND i have ever, EVER heard in my life is that of a baby's laughter, not just a tiny giggle, but the sound of loud pure joy bursting out from deep within

thank you Lord for this awesome weekend you have made :)
bring on the next week!

on babysitting

i was pushing the little girl on the swing at the park today with the baby safely watching us in his pram a few metres away
a father & infant son pair arrived to occupy the swing beside us and the father struck up a conversation with me

F: i reckon they aren't yours
me: nah, i'm just babysitting

(i look over at the slides behind the swings and see two more little girls and a boy, all about 5ish of age)

me: are they all yours?
F: (pointing to the infant boy on the swing) this one is. the blonde girl over there also mine. the other girl is her friend and i've been babysitting the boy every week for the past 3 weeks. it's been great practice having a boy as a playmate for my girl for the future. my daughter is such a girl (strong emphasis on 'such'). she and her friend never let dean (the boy) join in their games, intentionally excluding him
F: girls are horrible aren't they?


i don't know how to respond

i guess a small amount of bitchiness is innate for every girl

走出你心中的那座山
找到自己的一片蓝天

looking very ridiculous

Wearing:

Sleeping tee
Trackies
Pink polka-dotted woolie socks
Purple-grey striped blanket

my room door was open and it directly faces my housemate's room
we looked at each other and i grinned sheepishly

C: very cold huh
me: yeah

epiphany

when i was really young, i used to think that teachers stayed in schools
as in they live there, belong there. period.

as i grew older, obviously i came to realise that it wasn't the case at all
but what i didn't realise until tonight was that i have never imagined teachers with a life, i mean with their own happening lives

and by teachers, i mean people who i've come to know first and foremost as teachers
i've tons of friends who are teachers and they're not in this category cos they're my friends first, teachers second

tonight 2 things happened that truly shocked my idealistic world and my perspective of teachers

1) i stopped by 7/11 on my way home a while ago and standing outside the shop in the freezing cold was my early childhood specialist from the most recent placement, clubbing gear, tattoos, can in hand, the whole deal
(i just can't tear the image of her with a toddler on a lap in class from my mind)
2) then i came home and came across the fb page of my jc form teacher..
let's just say .. OMG i have no words!

i'm really not judging them or anything
i'm just going through this moment in which you suddenly realise that something you've always thought to be true is in fact false and i'm just reeling from that knowledge

i feel like i'm brought back in time, learning once again that teachers DO NOT live in schools

and now i wonder if my students actually think that when they bump into me outside school or when they see my fb page

two week break (photo blog)

please don't ask me things i cannot answer
or Lord, please give me the Godly wisdom to answer the things i cannot answer on my own

school started today
i rushed home during lunch break cos i kept worrying that i left the heater on in my room
i was afraid that everything would burst up in flames and i would be greeted with a charred mess
thank God i was simply paranoid