At Home

I'm at home tonight. Usually I stay in camp during nights off, since it was too much of a trouble travelling back home simply to spend an hour or two at home. Today is different though, as I had to make the trip back to get my football boots and shin guards for the Inter-Battery Soccer Final, which is taking place tomorrow afternoon. I'm sure the match will be fun :o)

How do you feel when you decide to buy something to give or to bless someone else, but you never actually see them use it? Perhaps I'm a little too sensitive regarding this matter, but I always make a conscious effort to use whatever that others bless me with regardless of whether it is to my personal liking, as I believe it would really make the other person happy to see me actually use what they gave me. Of course I don't mean you just simply use whatever other people give to you, since there may be really weird stuff that people may give to you. But how about things, like a pen or a shirt? Now if you actually used the pen or wore that shirt, you would really make that person who gave you those items really happy. Now that's a personal opinion of mine.

Checked out Wen Zheng's Blog, and I have to agree with what he mentioned on the blog. We may struggle with various things in our spiritual walk with God. These struggles may come in the form of being a good testimony to the people around you, or trying to keep your prayer life and quiet time in check with God or maybe fighting against various temptations. All of us will have struggles in our lives and there will be times where we fail, but we need to know and understand that God looks into our heart when we are facing struggles, and it pleases Him to see us putting up a genuine fight/struggle since the very action in doing so is a display of our love and desire for Him. It is like a child trying to make pancakes for breakfast for his Father. The child may not know the proper way to cook delicious pancakes, and may even make really burnt pancakes. Despite this fact, the Father is still very pleased with his child as he sees the effort and desire in the child to want to please Him by making breakfast, and that itself makes the Father really pleased.

And I finally bought the book entitled " The Reason For God" by Timothy Keller! The book was recommended by Professor Donald Carson during his seminar a while back, and I'm sure it is gonna be a good book :o)

Man Utd Need Cristiano Ronaldo At His Best Soon.

After last weekend's loss against Liverpool, I believe United needs Cristiano back on the team. In the short while that he played against Villareal in the Champions League, United definitely looked more threatening on the attack, with more opportunities presenting itself. It is like United lack the cutting edge on the their without Cristiano Ronaldo, and with the next match being against Chelsea this weekend, Cristiano has to be playing in the team. There may be some people saying that he may not currently be at the peak of his fitness, but having said that, United is gonna need him regardless of his condition if they are thinking of beating Chelsea. As much as I don't really like Cristiano for his somewhat "arrogant" attitude on the pitch, I must say that the team really needs him to be playing for them.

Haha, I think the football craze is coming back to my life again. Well, I guess it's more Premier League Action for me from now on :o)

Anyways, a few of the cell peeps and I will be heading down to Cathay in the evening for dinner at Astons. I have never heard of the place before, so I hope the food's gonna be good. I was actually hoping that we might have dinner at Fisherman's Wharf ,since that was the other place we were actually considering in the beginning, and I really loved the food there. I dunno, perhaps the food at Astons is comparable or even better? Well, in any case I'll be going there later, so I hope the food is good.

And gosh, Death Cab For Cutie is really good. I'm actually listening to them right now as I'm typing this down, and I must say I can't get enough of them. They are THAT good, well at least in my opinion.

Go Man United! Thrash Chelsea this weekend! Woot!

Converse Sneakers! Woot!

Got a Radiohead DVD consisting of all the MTVs of their greatest hits for Nat for his birthday last saturday. He is a huge fan of Radiohead, so I thought it would be a great thing for him to have. I was actually afraid that he may already have that DVD considering how much he likes Radiohead, so I was really relieved when he said he was actually planning to get it sometime in the future.

Hanged out in Orchard with some of the cell guys on sunday afternoon. We really walked round the whole of Orchard, starting from Far East to Tangs, and then to Wisma Atrium and finally to Heeren. In the midst of all that walking, I began to notice the rather terrible condition of my shoes; seemed like the sole was coming off. We then headed to the Converse outllet in Heeren to look for shoes to get. Needless to say, I decided to get the red coloured pair of sneakers as it had been on my mind for quite some time already. It was at this point where Nelson saw another pair of Converse Sneakers that he liked, and he too decided to get a pair as any true Converse lover would do. Good purchase for the both of us :o)

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
– Theodore Roosevelt

Saw this above quote on Wen Zheng's blog. It is a good reminder of how we should stay firm in our beliefs and have the courage and boldness to step out of our comfort zones to make a difference with our lives for what we believed in, regardless of whether there may be risks and obstacles in our way. If we choose to stay at the sidelines, in our own comfort zones and watch others do what we might or could have done if we had chose to instead, then we are essentially beginning to lose the very purpose to which our lives have been destined and planned by God to fufill. That, in my opinion would be the worst thing that can ever happen to anyone, which is a life led without fufilling the purpose to which it was called to do.

The Week In Summary

I first found out on monday that we did well in th HR knowledge test, especially Clement who I think probably is the top scorer in the whole examination! Kudos to Clement for that extremely unbelieveably good score, the whole branch is really proud of you. This actually means more pressure put on Daniel and the rest, since they will have to match up to the scores from this year for the next year haha! Our boss decided to give us two days off for the good results, so it was really worth the time spent on the exam (though both of us only knew about the exam quite late on). Praise God for this wonderful result!

I bought a Nike knee support band on tuesday, and promptly tried running with it the next day. Well, I guess the support band is rather good, since i did not experienced any knee pain after the run. Seems like the knee support is gonna be a regular fixture in future runs for me, at in least in the near future.

We had a surprise half day off today, so I went back home. I'm going to the Macs at West Coast Park later in the night to meet up with a old friend, someone that I should have met up with much earlier on. I hope everything goes well later, that it would not be an awkward scene, but one that is comfortable and relaxed.

" An apple a day keeps a doctor away" : taken from Daniel "Boss" Peck.

This picture is totally hilarious :o)

Indie music Alert! Check out the bands " Black Kids" and "The Decemberists", they have some rather decent music up their sleeves. Found out about them on the internet on Indierockcafe.com, which is another awesome website for Indie music :o)

Guitar Hero! and others..

Played Guitar Hero on the Wii system today. I heard a lot about the game, that it was really fun and cool from lots of different people, but today was the day I finally understood the reason why the game is so fun! I'm sure the feetwashers had a blast of a time with the game as well, and it was great just seeing them being able to blend in well with us through the game. Well, I hope that's the first of many that we are gonna see them in church and more importantly, in cell groups as well.

There was a small group of us (Nelson, Chin Wee, Nicolette, John Chew) who began challenging each other in Guitar Hero with the song "Through the fire and flames" on the easy settings. It was really difficult even on the easy settings, and it was only after two tries that Nelson and I managed to complete the song. Haha, the whole experience was really fun :o)

I've realised in recent days that my left knee has began to hurt slightly. I hope it is only a strain, and that it will go away soon enough. It would really stink if the knee pain becomes a permanent thing in my life, simply because it will definitely affect me when I play sports or even just simply jogging. Perhaps it is time to get myself a knee support guard from queensway soon, so that there will be less strain on my knee.

Should I invest my money on a good pair of runnning shoes? I've been eyeing a particular model from Adidas for quite some time already, and it still looks good to me when I checked it out at Vivo today. Perhaps I should get it also for the sake of my knee, but John Chew was telling me to get one from Asics. He says that they have the best shoes for running.

Gosh, I think I have been drinking WAY TOO MUCH coffee. I should really stop downing down so much of those caffeine infested drinks, but it really is easier said than done. Iced Americano is the one that really puts some kicks in. I'm probably gonna start by drinking a cup less each day, and hope i limit my intake to just two cups a day in the near future :o)

Definition Of Weird

Definition of weird: of a strikingly odd or unusual character; strange.

I have been wondering for a while why there are people who call others weird (in a negative way) . Sometimes a person may have his or her own style of doing things, and perhaps this style may be out of the social norm today. But should someone simply conform to the ways and lifestyles that the media depicts as socially "acceptable", just to be accepted by others in that sense?

What about just being comfortable with who you are, and being the unique person that you are? Surely it is more important to be genuine and true to yourself, than to put on a facade and a mask and to pretend to be someone that you are not? The media has a very good way of trying to convince us to live up to their expectations of how life should be led. Just look at the girls who are scarily skinny, being portrayed on magazines and television by the media as the "ideal" image to strive for. Is being skinny and unhealthy cool? Obviously not!!

It's definitely way more cool and right to live a life that is free from all that stereotypes today. After all, we all only have just one life to lead, so why lead the life of trying to be someone else? People may call you weird at times, but maybe that's because they already have this image in their minds by the media of what is "cool" and "socially acceptable", and hence might have difficulties accepting something that's not the "social norm" altogether.

More Pictures of my birthday :o)

Taken at White Dog Cafe :o)