Birthday! Opera!

I had a very different experience for my birthday this year. Met up with loads of people, some of them friends, some of them family relatives. First up, I met my nanny and her family..

Now people have been asking me why I've always said that i have four sisters instead of one, like they couldn't really figure where the other three sisters came from. Well, I'm proud to say that these three sisters are the daughters of my nanny (Now that's a long time ago....), and they have been taking care of me ever since the day I knew I even existed, and I've been addressing them as "Da Jie, Er Jie and San Jie" for as long as I've remembered.

Well, we met up for lunch at White Dog Cafe at Vivo City, and we had one sumptuous lunch! I've never eaten so much for a long while, and my goodness it was really good! For those who have not heard of White Dog Cafe in Vivo City, they have affordable set lunches which costs roughly about ten to fifteen dollars depending on what deserts you order, and trust me, it is worth your money for the kind of food they served :o)

After lunch my Sis and I began walking around Vivo City. We didn't have any plans though, so it was simply a matter of total randomness, bumming around in the various shops. I was quite sure my sis wanted to use this opportunity to get me something I like while shopping, but I ended up being the one buying stuff for her! I mean, birthdays can be a great occasion to be receiving from others, but personally to me it can also be an ocassion of giving as well. You don't always have to receive something to be happy, and sometimes greater joy can be derived from being able to give to others.

Having spending the afternoon with my Sis, I headed down to The Esplanade to meet up with the rest to catch the opera "Turandot". Naomi was in it, so we kinda went for the opera so as to show support for her as well. Watching the opera was a new experience to me, and you can't help but be amazed by the vocals of every single person involved in it. It requires a whole load of technique and vocal talents in my opinion to be able to sing in an opera. It is simply a form of art to be admired :o)

After TCC, we headed to TCC beside California Fitness in Orchard for supper. The guys were nice; they got me a cake and managed to sing a birthday song just one minute before midnight. It was cool in my opinion, so thanks guys!! I really appreciate it :o)

We took this on our way to TCC on the bus. It was DIFFICULT taking the picture on a moving bus, so credits to Cristal.

The flowers weren't mine. I just borrowed it from Naomi just for the fun of it. I wouldn't blame anyone if they find that this picture looks wrong; even I think it looks wrong. (For your information, I'm not a flower lover, so this is as close as you can get seeing me with one.)

Music On Ipod = Ear Pain?

Darn..

My ears are slightly hurting. I've only felt it in recent weeks, and I think it may have something to do with my excessive usage of the Ipod I got this year. That isn't good news at all, because that would mean that I probably got to stop listening to music for a while to allow rest time for my ears!!

Think about all the book ins, or all the travelling i do without the world of music in the midst of that! It is gonna be really boring and draggy doing all that, at least in my opinion :o(

Someone, anyone who knows of really good headphones that doesn't give you ear problems, please LET ME KNOW!!! I'm gonna splash on one as an investment, so that I can enjoy my music on Ipod, period.

Just saw the email that uncle peter sent to me regarding the next trip to Cambodia at the end of the year. I really wanna go on the trip, but there may be slight complications if it clashes with the Tanglin Halt Christmas Event. While we were on our way back to Singapore from Cambodia the last time, there was this feeling that compels me to wanna make a return trip back to do more for the team over there with whatever little I have to offer. I can't explain what i felt, but I was more than sure that I'll be making a return trip to Cambodia, and the December trip is the next one. Let hope I have the opportunity to do so..

Meiko is a good Indie Singer, all Indie Lovers should try listening to her songs, especially "Reasons to love you", and "Hawaii", two of her better songs.

Wait a minute, I'm listening to her song right now.. Darn gotta stop before my ears explode from music 'poisoning'.

The Half Marathon And Couple Shirts.

I went for the Army Half Marathon today. We were there really early, kinda about 5 plus in the morning, and the only people walking around the gathering point were guys in army PT attire. This is really an odd scene as i've never seen City Hall with that many NSFs in my life! There was this group of runners who were already doing some warm-up runs when we first got there, and I'm guessing they are probably not local simply because Singaporeans would never do that, not for anything in the world I would reckon.

Anyway we were in for a very unpleasant surprise when we step onto the field where we were supposed to report. It was raining just a couple of hours ago, and the field was soaked with MUDDDD!!!!! The floor looked like someone just dump a whole lot of Chocolate Nutella onto the field, and it only took a few steps before my shoes were completely coated with mud, like some messed up version of a chocolate fondue. It was that bad, and I really felt sorry for those who wore branded shoes, especially the Adizero folks.

Well, Clement and I brought some bread and tuna for 'makeshift' breakfast, and it wasn't so bad. At least we didn' have to run on an empty stomach :o)

After the race was over, the medical guys, clement and I went to Cineleisure for "brunch", since it wasn't lunch time yet haha. We went on our separate ways after that though as the medical dudes wanted to have sushi, whereas Clement and I were looking forward to some old fashioned good burgers. Yi long tried his best to convince the both of us to go for sushi too, but well it just wasn't the day for sushi for me. Clement and I were talking about ORD and stuff of the like, saying how fast time has past since we first enlisted into the army. It's just 5 more months to FREEDOM!! Talk about having extraordinary enthusiasm when there's still one last hurdle to clear; the HR Audit. I endured it once, a second time is just simply overkilling on the experience meter. :o(

Bummed around in HMV for a while, listening to some really random music that they have available for sampling, and waiting for cell people to come to town. So after bumming around in HMV long enough, I made my way to Plaza Singapura, where Tedric and the rest were buying tickets from sistic for Naomi's opera performance next friday. I'm really looking forward to that day, as I've never seen an opera myself before.

After buying the tickets, we subsequently headed to TCC for a slack session. Vincent introduced the song"Dear God" by the Avenged Sevenfold. It did sounded really good, though Vincent promptly reminded shortly after the majority of their music's metal, which ain't my cup of tea. Well, at least that's one more nice song added to my Ipod, so no complaining over that.

Here's a group picture of us in TCC, looking really stoned out.

Now that's more like it, like we finally injected some emotions to our poses. Then again, the guys must be feeling over emotional with the poses, and only the girls look normal..

And I still don't have a good opinion of couple shirts. I think they are really weird, like some major catastrophe in my opinion, but I have some friends who are more than ready to make me eat my words. They have even thought of setting up a group in Facebook in favour of couple shirts, ready to convert me anytime, especially Nianci and Nicholas (that loving couple)! Haha You have to try harder than that dudes haha! :o)

Good Old Ancient days

Look at those photos of us all those years ago.. This may sound cliche, but it seemed like yesterday when the pictures are taken. It's been a while, so we may look kinda dorky :o)

I'll be heading over to the teochew porridge shop beside Al Azhar later to meet up with Nianci, Beattite, Shiying and Henry for dinner. Yukun can't go though, he just texted me telling me that he's down with some viral infection, and didn't want to infect us as well is he went. Rest well dude, and perhaps we will catch up again sometime soon :o)

Cambodia Trip

Time to talk about the cambodia trip! I've been very busy in recent days, hence the lag in the posting of this very entry. Well, lets begin then :o)

Cambodia is a really different place from Singapore in virtually every aspect. The roads were filled with loads of dust, and the standard of general cleanliness there will be a catastrophe for any cleanliness freaks out there. It was really an eye opener for me since it was the first time I've been to that country.

1st day: We went to the church VBS in Phnom Penh and did the 'Hands' skit, followed by some songs with simple actions for the kids to enjoy and have fun in the midst of the worship session. It was initially difficult for the team as there was this language barrier since the children could only understand khmer, but our cambodian friends were there to help us do the translation for the kids to understand. With their help, we managed to pull it off. It was really heartwarming to see the kids enjoying the sing-a-long session in such a innocent manner, and you could really see the joy in their faces in the midst of all the singing and actions. Later in the afternoon, it was the kids' turn to perform their skits in a talentine fashion. It was hugely enjoyable, and I particulary enjoyed the parts whereby the kids will sing in khmer. After the Talentine was over, we begin to hang out with the cambodian youth who were helping out in the church, and got to know them better through games, though for the guys all it took was a game of basketball for us to really click well together.

2nd day: We made three trips to 3 different villages in the countryside. The truck ride to the villages was particulary filled with loads and loads of dust!! By the time we reached the first village, all of us was covered with so much dust that all u need to do was to jump, and the place around you will suddenly appear smoky. It was THAT much dust. But the trip was more than worth it when you see the kids in the villages enjoying the many games and songs we brought to them. For them, such simple things will already bring such joy and fun to them, which really made me think about the kids back in Singapore, who due to the exponential advance of technology have begun to place their enjoyment in more sophisticated and costly things such as the PSP, and hence are only enjoying themselves in a virtual world and not the real world. Now that really stinks in my opinion. Anyway, the skies were filled with dark clouds when we got to the second village. It was getting really windy, and the team was beginning to get worried as a rainstorm would really complicate the whole situation. Seeing this, I said a small prayer in my mind, hoping the clouds would be diverted to some other place or perhaps disappear altogether. Guess what, by the time all the kids were gathered to the tiny shed we were in, the skies were cleared and the sun was shining brightly!! Some people may attribute this sudden change of event to some extraordinary luck or what have you, but there is no doubt in my mind that Only One Person is able to do that, and because i gave thanks in my heart for that :o)

The guys then bunked in the village church for the night, and I could tell you that the preparations made just to sleep that night were elaborate to say the least. Mosquito nets, repellents, coils were put into strategic locations so that the mosquitos would have no chance of biting us! We couldn't do much about the dogs though. The dogs really love barking in the night, like it was singing in their opinion, but really it was just noisy for me. Just when you were finally about to sleep, the dogs kinda sensed it and they start barking away. Fiesty creatures they are, though I suspect the reason why I would say something like that is because I was really stretched out on the irritation meter that night.

3rd day: We visited a church service in Tahmau, one of the provinces in Cambodia. It was a simple place in my opinion. After that we headed back to VBS in Phnom Penh for their youth service. We took a lot of pictures after that with our cambodian friends, and some of us exchanged handphone numbers and email addresses with each other so that there will still be some form of communication there, and we can continue the friendship through that. In fact, I'm waiting for a reply from the bass guitarist Romany. Both of us hit it off especially after the basketball game, and I offered my services as a tourist guide should his family ever decide to come to Singapore for a holiday. Hope they are doing well..

For any other information regarding what happened for the last day of the Cambodian, the only notable thing I had was being able to eat FRIED CRICKETS!!!!!! Now is that freaking cool and awesome or what? I really wanted to try the fried spiders, but they were only on a per kg sale, so I kinda freaked out upon hearing that, simply because no one was that hungry for spiders!! I also bought a bag for my sister, and I'm glad she liked it :o)

More of Cambodia soon!!

Cell Group

I love these dudes :o)

Now this is what I call one big happy family..

Congrats once again to Vincent, Calvin and Ashley for taking the next step forward!

Hands, And The New Zealand Trip

The Cambodian mission team met today at the nursery room. Uncle Peter began to brief us regarding the schedule and the places that we will be going during our stay there. I guess there was a huge relief among the members in the team when we realised that the area that we were going was very far away from Thai-Cambodian border conflicts since we will be travelling around the central region of the country. However having said that, it would also mean that we would be too far away from Siem Reap and guess what, Angkor Wat's IN THAT REGION!!!

Darn it.

Haha what am I talking about? The main focus of this trip is to reach out to the youth over there and to bring Genuine Hope to their generation. Anyway, the mission team decided to prepare skits and games for the children and the youth during our visit to the three churches in Kampong Speu. I was part of the team preparing the skits, and our skit is titled "Hands". Now this is a skit that was last seen in Malan Road at the old SAJC campus a few years back, so when when we were told to prepare the skit, only Shirley Sim and I could roughly recall the fundamental actions and movement that were used in the skit. Haha suprising that a guy who was once called "Dory" due to his forgetfulness could actually remember something that took place long ago!

Lights, Camera and action time :)

The people involved in the skit were Wen Zheng, Jingying, Tedric, Shirley and myself with Brenda as the narrator of the skit. We had a blast of fun during the rehearsals, trying out all sorts of different ways to bring out the story of the skit! It was particulary funny to see Tedric trying to look as if he was in a lot of pain and suffering during his scenes since his facial expression were a mixture of pain and laughter, but you gotta give thumbs up to the guy, because he brings that sort of comical feeling to the skit instead making it seem so serious. Having said that, I heard that the cambodians like comedies, so I guess that's a plus point to the skit. We were having so much fun rehearsing that we completely forgot about the cambodian translator that was involved in the skit as well! All the time we have been taking ques from the narrating by Brenda that we forgot that her narrating will be followed by a cambodian translation!

Uh oh.

The team decided to rehearse this time with the inclusion of the Cambodian "translation" by Jeremy. For the first few attempts, all of us had the inclination to act our roles immediately after the English Narration and we tend to forget about the Cambodian translation part. Thankfully, after a few more attempts, we were doing a much better job at acting out our roles. I guess that was probably due to the fact that we were all serious about doing the skit properly and yet we could also have so much fun enjoying the whole process!

After the meeting was over, we had a quick lunch, and it was off to Cell Group. The guys, particulary Nat, had a really huge reaction when I was telling them about extending my service time to go New Zealand. "Jerome, you've got to be crazy to even be able to think about doing such a thing! I wouldn't mind subsidising your trip to go there some day, but you got to be really crazy thinking about extending for 1 FRIGGING month just to go NZ!" was one of the many comments( or should I really say criticism?) that I received from Nat. Is it really so bad a decision? I'm really thinking about it right now, and I'm supposed to give an answer to my superiors on wednesday. I mean, who know when I would have the next opportunity to go to a country filled with such beautiful sceneries? Maybe never, and that's why it's really bugging me because on one hand it's really an exciting opportunity to be able to go to that country and possibly have a unique experience over there, but yet on the other hand everyone is telling me not to go!

I really need a tie breaker on this issue, otherwise my mind's gonna go bonkers and EXPLODE!! Haha, somebody help me on this one.

It's gonna be Vincent's Baptism tomorrow! Kudos to you dude, I'm gonna be there tomorrow with the Cell Group in the afternoon to show my support for you :)