kay, i've restarted blogging and decided that i've outgrown blogdrive. oops. no offense. just wanna try something new lah. so here's the new addy...


littlegreeenpea.blogspot.com

Haven’t keyed in an entry in an equivalent of a million blog years. Yup, a looong time. So I shall make up for it with this 2 in 1 entry.

 

A couple of days ago I went for Rach’s VJ choir concert. First time in my life I stepped into one of the esplanade’s theatres. Exciting! The place was awesome man, I think they put in a lot of effort to design the hall and especially to bring out the beautiful sounds. They don’t need mics for anything sia, not even the tiny triangle’s “ting” was lost in the chorus of voices. Wow. Maybe our churches could do with a design like that. Back to the choir performance. It was cool, a really good performance. I mean for a choir to have choir-ers and choir-esses with fantastic voices is a given, but for each of them to sing together in harmony and precision is another feat altogether. I was watching the conductor doing his thing at the centre stage and its like he had invisible strings attached to his arms so that even the slightest movement or the flick of a wrist resulted in a change or variation in the sound. Wow, blew my mind. And of course there were the colourful costume changes. Haha. So overall, I shall rate it an 8 popcorns out of 10 <Must watch>.

 

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Today’s the last day of my summer term. Once again I look back with a few regrets. At the beginning of each term I always tell myself I have to be more disciplined, be more ON in class. Especially after looking at my grades for last term. Yuck, not too awe inspiring. I really need to speak up in class man, or else my grades are just gonna keep going down the drain. Sigh, not too good at that. Everytime I wanna say something I have to plot it out in my brain and run it over a few times to make sure I don’t miss anything or say anything stupid-worthy, and I spend so long that by the time I work it out someone else or someone elses have already had their say and the professor moves on to the next point. Gahh. Its fine if what I’m about to say actually turns out to be a booboo answer, then at least I can tell myself, “heng ah, never malu”. Haha. But more than a couple of times I wanna say something but cos I hesitate then another person says it and the prof goes, “Well done so and so!”. Lol. Another missed opportunity to score participation marks. Well I guess apart from striving to make a smart contribution I could always take the long-winded route. i.e. learn to talk in circles and throw in big sounding, professional words along the way so that absolutely no one knows what in the world you are saying and EVEN the professor has to feign intelligence by nodding his head and giving a “I know what you are talking about” smile when he’s probably just as lost as everyone else. But that’s not me…I don’t like to talk in circles or in layman terms, I don’t like to “smoke” when I actually don’t know the answer. So I guess that leaves me with only one way out. PREPARE in advance for the lecture! That’s wad my wise old dad told me the other day. Must play less online games and maybe watch a little less soccer. (I don’t mean the man u matches, I’m talking about the other loser club matches like Chelsea and Arsenal ones ;p)

 

Anyways, looking forward to the June holidays! Going away to Thailand for a mission trip from the 30^th of May to 2^nd of June. Not play play one, must go there and do some teaching related to the purpose driven life that we just completed. Then its off to CANADA!!! Think I’ll be going from the 7^th June to the 17^th June. First time! Hahhaha! May be stopping by Japan as a bonus too. ;) Wahhh….can’t wait man. Its been ages since I last got out of the peninsular of, I dunno whats the name. I need a break man, then followed by a break from the break and another break after that to recover from the previous break I needed to recover from the first. Haha. So excited that I’m talking crap now. -_-“ That’s not even the end of the story! Prob in July I’ll be going REDANG! Correction, is not “probably”, its “definitely”! Yup, the sun, sand and sea….ahhhh. Shiok ah. Jam packed with stuff. Really dunno whether I’ll feel more relaxed or tired after all the dust has settled. But it’ll be loads of fun!

 

Having said that, since I’ll be away for so long I’ll be missing the people back home. Yup, especially…….

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haha…

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my family lah. What were you thinking???

 

Moral of the story? Don’t let your imagination run wild. Stick to the facts. ;)

 

Ivan…out.

What’s worse than not giving up your seat when you see an old lady standing in front of you on the crowded mrt? That’s pretty bad already huh? I mean you with the young strong legs, hogging the seat and pretending to sleep the moment you saw her coming up the train. Who care’s that you had a really long day at school/work? That old lady’s probably had tons more and she’s still standing upright. I mean you won’t die from giving up your seat right? Yup, that really sucks, not to say that I haven’t done it before though. *Guilty*. Cos sometimes it isn’t so clear cut, like what if the old lady was 10 paces away from you and inbetween there’s a gazillion other people who ought to give up their right to a seat first? Then there’s the problem of the hungry vultures. You know? The kind who can’t wait to pounce on the empty seat the moment I get up to walk over and ask the old lady to sit down? Yeah, them. Even then I have to admit, there’s no excuse not to let the old lady take your seat. But the question is, what can be worse than not giving up your seat?

 

Well, it goes like this. Lets say this sort of thing doesn’t really come naturally to you. So imagine after you go through the struggle in your mind and you finally agree to give up your seat, and then suppose you manage to gather enough courage to say, “Auntie, you can have my seat” and you also gather enough strength in those weary legs to make the move to stand up? Suppose you do all these things and then you wait eagerly in anticipation to see the look of gratitude on the lady’s face and perhaps even a simple, “thank you” would be nice but all you get is a cold glance and the words, “dun need”. How would you feel? Sucks huh? I mean, at first you think you’d make her day by a small simple gesture, instead you end up with a, “dun need”. Its kinda like getting the door slammed in your face, except in a more subtle way. *shrugs* what do to.

 

My point? I guess it’s really cool if you show someone a kind gesture and the person responds with a smile and a thank you. It makes your day too. But what if you get the opposite response? Does that mean you don’t be nice ever again? Nah, I don’t think so. To do otherwise would be to allow your heart to grow cold and calloused. Guess you just have to accept the fact that not everyone thinks the same way you do. So just keep doing good and hope that someday you’ll get the smile and thank you that you’ve been looking for. Cheers! =)

 

Ivan…out.

I reckon you blog more when you’re stressed. When you blog, its an outlet to vent your frustrations or even just to untangle your thoughts by putting them out in words. Which explains why I haven’t been blogging recently lor. Haha. Exams over already, no stress what for still stare at the com the whole day?? Many other things to do, Secondary and Primary exams coming so need to devote more time to helping my students, must catch up on my fitness training regime cos I’m taking my yearly Nsmen fitness test in may, which is only in 3 weeks time and other miscellaneous things like getting some colour on my pale white face. Haha.

 

Something really disgusting happened today. I arrived in school late cos it was raining buckets, then when I finally reached the block I decided to buy some snack from the vending machine to keep myself awake. I was thinking MnMs or something exotic like that lah, once in a while indulge, then I check my wallet. -_-“ oni got 70cents, how to buy MnMs? Lol. So the next best thing was the grape mentos. I put 2 20cents in, was about to put in the 3^rd 20cent when it inexplicably slipped thru my fingers. Pengs. The stoopid coin then proceeded to roll itself under the vending machine! I was like walao, dun have that 20cents I cannot even buy the mentos liao. Haha. So I went down on all fours to scrape under that dusty vending machine. Tada! First time lucky, I pulled out a!...5cent coin. -_-“. Anyway after a couple of tries I got back my lost coin, bought the mentos and went up. Just one hour into the lecture I finished the entire tube except the last sweet. A while ago I noticed some ants crawling around the mentos so I killed them, din think too much about it. I take the last mentos, pop it into my mouth then carry on listening to the lecturer. I look down at the table and see 2 or 3 ants, no sweat, as usual squish X3. Then I see an ant on my left arm and another on my right. Hello? Alarm bells start ringing. Am I sitting on an ant nest or something? And then, it dawned on me. . . . . the ants were coming from my mentos lah, specifically, the one in my mouth!!!! I took the mentos out like a flash! And I saw this gaping hole in the sweet(I hadn’t bitten it yet, heng ah), inside the hole were ants scurrying to and fro! Arggh. Pweeuiii! Dunno how many other sweets got holes inside with ants and I happily gobbled them all up. Haha. Yuck right?

 

Moral of the story? Watch out, ants don’t appear for no reason. Haha.

 

Ivan…out.

 

Lost for words.

 

Ivan…out.

Feeling weak, think I'm down with a mild case of diarrhea. No wonder I wasn't able to pull of my April fool's joke...no form today. Garrr. And no, this entry is NOT an april fool’s joke either. Arghh. I think after I type this entry I’m gonna be gone…to the toilet bowl. Counting the number of times I went today already…starting to exceed the number of fingers in one hand and its only 5:45pm! Gosh, must tahan until sleep cos when you sleep you won't feel the urge to go to the loo right? But then scully poot on the bed instead. Awww yuck. Not a good sign. Had dinner with Rach, Ruth n Quek after vocals yest night and ate the chicken noodles at Bugis. Was it the noodles? Or the duck soup I kope….greedy me. Arghh. Dunno...dun care. Eh..got the feeling liao....URGENT!

 

Ivan…out.

Right, I know I ain’t getting any younger. 24 this year, oldest son…blah blah blah, you get the idea. But still, I don’t really appreciate it when pple tease me about someone else. Ya know? Especially if it ain’t true, it doesn’t help anything, in fact makes it even more awkward when I see that person. Yup, in the worst case it pisses me off. Maybe its cos sometimes I’m just not in the mood for such stuff. Sigh, dunno why so sway kanna tease. Poor L & D, must have gone through a lot all these years. Poor things. Er so please yeah, I know I ain’t getting any younger but I don’t need reminders. I say again, DON’T need. Thanks. Haha. Friendly reminder 1 on 1 with me I’m fine but not in the crowd of 1,000 that kind of situation (exaggerating for effect). Thanks, but no thanks I’m fully aware time isn’t exactly on my side.

 

Its not that I’m not ready for commitment or I’m too choosy or I’m gonna be celebate for the rest of my life. Nonono, celibacy? Nah, leave that for Jon Tan. Ahahaha. He did say that some time ago…not sure how things have evolved since then. Anyway, choosy? Not really, I’m just making sure. You know this isn’t exactly like shopping for furniture or a dress you know? You take a chance with those things and if they don’t work out you can always discard at no extra cost to you or anyone else. Relationships on the other hand are completely different organisms altogether. If you make a rash decision and regret it in the future not only do you affect yourself but the other person as well. Rash decisions I’ve made a plenty, at least now I’m wiser for it and I’d give the world not to repeat those again. So if you say I’m choosy you are half correct but it’s not because I have out of this world standards that I look for in someone. It’s just that I wanna make sure everything works out fine for everyone involved. Yup, I prefer a more cautious approach so if I ever say that I have feelings for someone, you can be sure it wasn’t something I said off the top of my brain. Anyway, these things aren’t always so straight forward as you see in the movies lah I’m sure you will all agree. Will just take things one step at a time and if I’m still single when I turn 30? No worries lah mate, theres always SDU. AHAHAHA. Eh…kai the sec 4 lot like only left u and me leh. If by then boh seng li then we go sign up SDU together onz? Haha.

 

On a more optimistic note…my dad always says, pray. Haha. And who am I to argue, he must have prayed like mad lah cos he got my dearest MOMA! One fine momma she is. =) And it follows that she has 3 fine kids, the oldest being the finest…but that’s for another day. Ahem. Ahh, dun puke I’ll shattup. Yup, back to the main topic we were talking about prayer? Yes, God has plans and in His time He will reveal so I shall head my dad’s advice and go pray. Plus I haven’t done my qt yet….12 am. Sheesh. Gtg, ciaos peeps! And rem, DON’T TEASE. Roar.

 

Ivan…out.

Fire is good. You need it to keep warm, to cook food properly or else u get diarrhea like poor vincy, to boil water to remove GERMZ, haha and to sterilize utensils for surgery. So many useful ways that fire can help us, it seems we can’t really do without it can we?

 

Yet we know of people who get burnt by fire, their faces get all bloated up and they even need skin transplants from their butt, or where ever that din kanna burnt, to grow new skin. Fire burns down buildings and brings it all to rubble and ash. It produces smoke that chokes and causes eyes to tear. With all these horrible things that can happen, why don’t we just eliminate fire from the face of the earth? Gather all the earth’s cigars, lighters, matchsticks, gasoline n every other flammable thing and bury it deep under the earth. Never to be seen again.

 

Truth is we can’t do without fire, yet we can’t ignore the dangers that fire can sometimes bring. At this point yur probably thinking that my finger kiap last tue affecting my brain nerve or something right? Haha. But actually I just wanted to draw a parallel between fire and friendship la. I’m sure we all know we can’t live without friendship because man was never created to be alone, even God said so before he created Eve. Yet the people that we know to be closest to us are often the ones who leave behind the deepest scars in our lives. True? So much so that some people don’t ever dare to reach out again. They are afraid. I’m never one to be overly emotional but I think that in a certain sense, I can understand why they would think like that, it isn’t easy to recover from pain or hurt and its obvious that this is true when you look around and see many people who ‘walking wounded’. But because of such bad experiences should we then eliminate friendship out of our vocabulary forever? Close ourselves up for fear of being hurt? Never, for that would be as foolish and meaningless as saying lets completely destroy fire.

 

Moral of the story? Not too sure either. Go figure, I’m no school teacher so I’m not obliged to spoon feed you. Bleh. Haha.

 

Anyway, last week was crazy. But by God’s grace I managed to survive, don’t think I wanna go into details but I’m just glad things worked out well in the end. I’ll just say one thing, I don’t particularly enjoy talking infront of people over an extended period of time cos its just not my thing u know? So when I was scheduled to preach last sat on worship I wasn’t exactly confident about it but I agreed to take up the challenge anyway. I can still remember how things went the last time I took a session to teach about worship. I don’t think even half the people got the msg while the other half were prob drifting off into space. There wasn’t much that I could place my confidence on, except on God. To make matters worse I din have the luxury of time to prepare what I was going to say as swee swee as I would have liked it to be. Cos I’m not the impromptu kind. Na-uh, no way, I need to prepare and run thru wat to say over and over again one. But thank God that the session went well. At least it went much better than the previous few times. Thank you God. So so much. Appreciate you pulling me through this difficult time. You are awesome!

 

Exams are coming up from the 11^th to the 15^th of April which is not more than 2 weeks away so this is probably my last entry till then. I promised myself not to spend more than half an hour a day infront of the tv, no computer games at all but can check and clear email starting from next week onwards till exam time but of course theres always time for friends lah. I ain’t gonna shut myself in a hole. Haha. But I must start revising liao. Must get serious. Discipline, drive, success. I can I can I can…I must I must…I will.

 

Ivan…out.

Ouch.

 

Ouch.

 

Ouch.

 

My left index finger still feels numb after e unfortunate encounter with my room door and door post. *winces in pain*.

 

Ouch.

 

Very pain leh.

 

I just checked my finger again. Can see a darkish reddish patch emerging beneath the top layer of skin. I think its internal bleeding.

 

Hai. You must be wondering wad happened to me today. Well, long story and it starts off like this. In the afternoon I came back from school cos I had a project meeting for 1 n a half hours (which is lesser than the time it takes for me to go to school n back). Reached home tired, plonked my stuff on the floor and was getting ready for a bath. I needed to catch some rest before going down to church for prayer meet. Anyways, I hung my shirt in my room to re-use for later(haha, its clean one la) then on the aircon in the room before I go and bathe. So I walked out of the room and closed the door behind to prevent the room from leaking the aircon out. Smart right? =) The next thing I knew, *BAMB*. I slammed the door shut. On my FINGER. Walao, stupid right? =( It hurts just thinking about it. Dunno whether to laugh or cry. Laugh at my stupidity cos I hurt myself doing something as routine as closing a door, duh. Cry because it was super pain lah. And if you think I’m being a wimp u try slamming the door on your finger see if you can still talk after that anot. Quickly checked the door to see if I left any part of my finger behind, phew, sigh of relief cos the finger still in one piece except a bit beng kou, crooked. Haha. The finger went numb, cannot feel anything at first but lucky my brain not numb. I went to put some ice on it after a couple of minutes and the feeling started to come back. Phew, double sigh of relief.

 

You know what? Through it all I’m still thankful for one thing, that its my left hand finger that got slammed not the right. Really, cos if its my right hand finger then it’ll be doubly jia lart n tong ku cos I use it to write, hold chopsticks, hold pen, dig nose etc. Haha. Yucks, ignore that last one. But I survived, and went for prayer meet and although it still smarts I managed to play the guitar. =))

 

Thinking back I still dunno why my left hand was lagging. I tugged at the handle to close the door but my hand was trailing, not fast enough to pull away somemore I still stick my finger out. Dunno for wad sia. Haha. So that’s the story of the day that proves, once again, Ivan you are slow and clumsy. Hahaha.

 

Ivan…ouch, I mean out.

After a flourish of entries in the past few weeks I’ve finally run out of brain juice. Can’t quite organize and pen down my thoughts in a way that is intelligible. I think I tried to put down an entry a couple of days ago then deleted the whole thing cos it was too messy.

 

Anyway, I’ve officially appointed Jeremy as my portable dictionary. Yesterday at Leader’s training someone mentioned the word idiosyncrasies, and I know roughly wad it means cos I always know roughly wad words mean but if you ask me to explain it in a clear and concise way I’ll just go “ah bah dhahgahhh er, dunno how to explain to you but I know what it means”. (accompanied by a facial expression that is meant to convey intelligence) Anyway here’s Jers definition I thought was quite complete, idiosyncrasies are habits/mannerisms that a person does, which seem okay to him but it actually gets on the nerves of others. Paraphrased slightly due to my bad memory. Tada, 1 portable dictionary. Haha.

 

Next few weeks are gonna be a major stress pot. Last Sunday was the opening of the 40 days of purpose campaign followed by 6 weekend services. On the one hand the Purpose Driven Campaign is something to look forward to, and preferably a time for me to do some serious evaluation of my life and purpose as well. But sadly it coincides with my project deadlines and my end term examinations on the 2^nd week of April. Ouch. In between preparation for exams and schoolwork there’s always the odd worship leading slot that pops up from time to time, musician practice, leading small groups on Saturday, teaching, worship retreat and still got the GB conference part 2 on the 2 April PLUS ministry fair on the 10 April. Just thinking about the next few weeks and typing this down is already making my heart beat faster…haha.

 

That’s one chock a block of events. Exciting, challenging, stretching, tiring, interesting mix of fun and work all rolled into one. Wooo! I think I said a few entries ago that I need a break, not the sleeping kind of break. I mean the go relak jack at seaside resort kinda break, Sentosa not counted. Haha….shiok sia. But first need to find sponsor. Heh. Anyone interested in supporting my ‘holiday to redang’ break? Haha. Wishful thinking huh? I also think so. Nvm, shall consider taking up a hobby instead…resurrect that old stamp collection of mine. -_-"

 

Ivan…out.