= FAVOURITE WORD =
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He will make your paths straight.
[NIV]
New phase. More changes.
What would the future bring?
Sunday, May 30, 2004
Flight To USA Confirmed!!!
Okay, my flight to USA has been confirmed! Here's how it looks like:
TO USA
7th June Monday
5.25pm Departure from Changi Airport Terminal 2, Singapore [MH 0608]
6.20pm Arrival at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [MH 0608]
10.45pm Departure from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [MH 0090]
8th June Tuesday
1.30am Arrival at Dubai, United Arab Emi [MH 0090]
3.10am Departure from Dubai, United Arab Emi [MH 0090]
9.20am Arrival at Newark, New Jersey (EWR Terminal B) [MH 0090]
TO SINGAPORE
18th June Friday
12.35pm Departure from Newark, New Jersey (EWR Terminal B) [MH 0091]
19th June Saturday
9.30am Arrival at Dubai, United Arab Emi [MH 0091]
10.45am Departure from Dubai, United Arab Emi [MH 0091]
10.00pm Arrival at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [MH 0091]
11.15pm Departure from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [MH 0091]
20th June Sunday
12.10am Arrival at Changi Airport Terminal 2, Singapore [MH 0609]
Okay, I got to go eat dinner now. I'll be back later to blog - if I feel like it!!! ;P
jOyZ blogged at 5:30 PM
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Inflation
Alright. Here I am again. It seems that I've been able to blog pretty regularly - at least once a week. ;o
I went for a movie with Pit Kun and treated her to dinner at Marche because she managed to pass all her subjects for Semester 1 this year - for once. Heh. But she definitely can do better than this, especially her Maths, which she managed only a pass.
After that Cheryl called her for help regarding the buying of gifts for her pupils. Apparently she was at Taka, so we went down to give our two cents worth. She ended up buying CD racks and note pads.
Gosh! Things these days are really not cheap! I pine for the days when movie tickets just cost S$3.50 to S$4.00; food at S$1.20 to S$1.50; and stationery at less than a dollar. I guess nowadays things are supposed to be of better quality. Seriously though, it's a when-you-see-one-you-have-seen-all issue. With so many chains or branches of the same shop all over the Singapore, it's a whole lot of mass production. So what good quality are we talking about?
Okay, I sound cynical. I think I'm just getting a bit concerned about my spending habits, especially now that I'll be spending *S$6000* on the USA trip. I definitely will be looking forward to the bonuses this year. Thank goodness the economy is picking up now. I'm no economist, but it seems that the cycle of economic ups and downs are getting a lot shorter. I read from somewhere many years ago when I was still an undergraduate that the cycle spanned between 10 and 12 years. But now, because of the widespread and intensive use of the Internet, this economic cycle has shortened by half somewhat such that the world will experience double (or even triple) the ups and downs within the same period of 10-12 years. Incredible - but scary.
I wonder what the future holds for the world. *ponders*
jOyZ blogged at 11:48 PM
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USA - Where To Go? How Much To Spend?
I was talking to Junmin on MSN Messenger today. We were discussing about where to go in USA. I think we'll be visiting New York, Washington DC, Niagara Falls definitely. I'm going to check out where else we can go visit. :)
Bee Yan was online too. Apparently she was packing for her trip to Sabah. Her flight's in the evening later today.
Speaking of which, hopefully I can take the Korean Air instead of UA flight. UA will cost me more than S$2000!!! Korean Air is slightly cheaper - S$1400, excluding tax and surcharge, but definitely shouldn't exceed S$2000. Then I gotta prepare another S$4000 to spend in USA. Gosh, that's a total of about S$6000!!! Wah!!! *coma*
Oh well, I think I shall abstain from shopping, cab rides and movies when I return to Singapore. I have to start saving up again. I can't wait for pay day in June!!! But that's like another 3 weeks away. xO
Okay, I think I'd better sleep. I have to wake up at 5.30am to bathe and get ready for work. Thank goodness Tuesday is my lightest day of the week. Oh, the Acting Minister of Education will be coming to the school for a visit tomorrow. Heh, how exciting.
*yawnz* Tata.
jOyZ blogged at 2:55 AM
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Sunday, May 23, 2004
Uneventful Sunday + Updates
Another week has passed. It's been quite an uneventful Sunday, except for church service today. :) Then I had lunch, and had a meeting with Kris and the YA leaders. There were some issues to iron out. We don't know the outcome yet. I stayed on to do Kris' huge huge huge birthday card with Mag and Fangling. Actually, I think I ate more chips than helping them out. ;p It was home sweet home after that.
Well, I'm just glad that I'd finally managed to finish marking all the examination scripts by Thursday morning this week. I was still marking the CME scripts that morning, I remember. I haven't had a good night's rest for almost the entire week too. I'm still rather tired even at this point.
I met up with Mag to buy Timothy's belated birthday present on Friday evening. Christina said he needs a polo shirt, so we bought him something from Polo Ralph. Woo! Then we bought this silly-looking gift wrapper which I really, really like!!! I think I'm going back to Borders to get one for myself. *beamz* Oh, we bought a card too. Hehe... There was some funny crap on the cover.
-Digression-
Aiyo... Mag just informed me that, according to Christina, the shirt we'd bought for Timothy is way too big! I guess we have to bring it back to exchange for something a little smaller. Hahahah... ;p
-Regression-
After buying all the stuffs, we went to eat at Scott's Picnic foodcourt. I tried the new stall which served Taiwanese ramen. It wasn't too bad, though I suspect most people will complain about its blandness. But I like it! Heh!
Then we went to the 5th level where Lido's box office was. It's one of our favourite hangouts. We couldn't find a table for quite a long time so we were really glad when 2 JC students (who refused to leave even though they were just sitting around, not eating, not chatting, not doing anything in particular!) finally left and we could flop on the chairs.
Pit Kun came by at around ten plus for her supper. She had gone for some RGS concert/musical which was held at ACS (Barker) earlier that evening. We crapped a bit on speaking in dialects, namely Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese, and only left for home at about eleven plus, I think.
I'm feeling pretty sleepy now. I've been online for quite a while actually. I'm probably gonna sleep by eleven.
Goodness gracious. I just remembered I've got work review with Yani on Wednesday. Sigh! :( I haven't even completed it. I guess I'll have to finish it up on Tueday.
jOyZ blogged at 9:56 PM
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Saturday, May 15, 2004
Still Marking And Sick Of It
Oh cool... Blogger.com has a new look. I haven't been blogging since Sunday so this came as a bit of a surprise.
Anyways...
Yeah, believe it or not, I'm -still- marking. Horrifying, isn't it? My entire cellgroup is enjoying at the chalet along Elias Road, while I'm stuck at home with tonnes of examination scripts to mark! Bad timing. It's really bad timing.
I had a few initial plans: 1) To meet Jann and Joey at Coronation's NTUC to buy the food for Sat evening. However, I changed my mind, which led to 2) meeting Fangling at around 8.30pm after her guitar lessons to go to the chalet together. Not surprisingly, I changed my mind again. (How fickle-minded can I get?! Ha.) So now, I'm only going there tomorrow afternoon. Okay, it's today afternoon actually. It's already 2 plus in the morning of 15 May (Saturday).
I'm listening to David Tao's 天天 now. I ripped his 2 whole albums to my Windows Media Player. (If my laptop crashes, that's it!) I'd actually borrowed the CDs from Pit Kun some time around last year. I finally managed to return them to her this week. ;O I wonder whose other CDs I have in my room. Maybe that's why my room is in perpetual mess. Heh.
Okay, this blog is way too long. I was supposed to type a short one. By the way, this is nothing new, but I'm absolutely dying to say it: I'm sick of marking!!!
Signing off... *scribbles*
jOyZ blogged at 2:40 AM
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Sunday, May 09, 2004
A Super Long Entry
Well, well... What did I do today?
I woke up late - heh, what's new? - and cabbed down to church for worship practice. After service, we prayed for Maybella. She's been diagnosed to have cancer. During service, she shared with the church that her mother prayed and fasted for her... and God told her mother that she would be healed! The most miraculous thing was the lumps in her lung and around her collarbone area (not too sure where) are diminishing! :O Praise God!
The cellgroup intends to go over Maybella's place to have an early birthday celebration with her and to have cellgroup time together. Unfortunately, I may not be able to make it. With all the marking piling up, I'm not too sure if I can - the deadline being Thursday (13th May) - because I will be going for chalet from Friday to Sunday. I can't possibly mark there! :O
Anyway, after prayer, we gate-crashed into UthNity's birthday celebration for Kris and one of the youths. Haha... Joy got Kris's birth date wrong - a week earlier. It didn't quite matter anyway. Kris was happy, I think. They bought her Goodwood Park's durian cake - her favourite. Haha... But I nearly fainted in the room; I can't stand the pungent odour of durian. ;P
Well, Kris also dragged Mag into the picture since Mag's birthday is just 2 days away. So our gate-crashing turned out to be a bigger celebration. We sang 'Blessed Birthday' to them. A while later, Pastor James entered to room and we invited him to say a prayer of blessing for them.
After that, we went AMK Central's Breeks-cum-Zingdo (they're interlinked) to celebrate Mag's birthday. Kris came a little later. Halfway during lunch though, I was reprimanded by Kris for not preparing worship well for the last Bible study. *sniffs* She wasn't harsh to me but was just waiting for me to admit that it was my fault. That was that. I'll just have to be more hardworking and communicative with whoever'll be the musician the next time round. :B
Kris then gave everyone the photos she took when we had dinner over at her place on the 18th April. That was the night when the cellgroup attempted to whip up a feast and just fellowshipped during the meal. Gosh, I look absolutely BLOATED in the photos. Grrrr! No more bingeing! I think I really have been overeating lately. Eating little or a lot is really a matter of habit. I should train my stomach to take in less food now. I think it all started last week when I was extremely hungry one night and actually cooked TWO packets of instant noodles. Eversince then, I've been gorging myself silly with food. Sigh... it's utterly gross!
This coming week, I shall control my appetite! Man shall not live by bread alone but by the word of God! Erh... I can't remember where the verse comes from in the bible... :x Never mind.
After lunch, Jann, Fangling, Mag and I went back church to attend worship meeting. It was quite interesting. Pastor James taught us how to support the Worship Leader when it comes to praying and reading the word of God. He encouraged us to echo after the Worship Leader and to do it with all our might (投入). We actually practised quite a bit - shouting out and declaring the words in Psalms 96 and 97.
Little Eunice was so cute. She was running around while we were all shouting aloud. And she had this white piece of cloth over her head. Haha... anyone would think she was desperate to get married. Anyway, when we were all seated in a circle, she stood in the circle close to where her mother was, and flipped the cloth on and off her head! We were all amused. When we were ending in prayers, praying in pairs on our knees, she actually went around and lay hands on us! She's so cute!!! No doubt very well-trained by her parents. She knows instantly when people are actually praying.
After praying, Jocelyn took some pictures of Eunice using her handphone. Eunice was so besotted by her own photos that she kissed her own pictures! Hahaha... Christina (her mom) says that Eunice can be quite self-entertaining. :)
The meeting ended at around 4.20pm. We trooped into Eden's office to discuss about Kris's birthday celebration there. It was hilarious. We actually printed out a photo of Kris when she was a toddler, and Joey went to cut out the shape of her face. We started playing around with the face... all laughing away like loons. By the time I left, it was 7pm. The rest was still discussing. I took a cab back as I didn't want my parents to nag at me for coming back home late for dinner.
They were all watching The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre VCD which my brother bought a few days ago. They've been watching it since they came back home. But I can understand. It was my all-time favourite gongfu drama serial when I was in Secondary 2. Gosh, that was like almost 15 years ago. *gape* Tony Leung was already -so charming- when he was younger. Haha... That was why I liked that serial so much. I never missed a single episode - not even during examination period. I remember it was shown every Sunday night from around 10pm or 1030pm onwards - a 2-hour serial. I really watched until shiok!
Now that I'm watching it for the second time, I'm not so charmed by it anymore. I guess it's because HK drama serials have been improving somewhat over the years. The storyline and quality of the serials are really of a higher standard. the fighting scenes that were considered exciting 15 years ago are deemed as bland now due to all the special effects which easily enhance the scenes - thanks to the computer.
Anyway, that's that.
Here I am now, blogging. This is a pretty long entry... a lot to type.
Pit Kun sent Mag and I a message this afternoon to ask if we were interested to help out with her church's VBS from 23-26 November. We've agreed to help out but it's all very tentative. It's still quite a long time from now until November so it's hard to say if we won't have anything that'll crop up later on. Hopefully, we don't. I may be an assistant teacher. I wonder what that entails... ... ...
I'm listening to Joy Enriquez's How Can I Not Love You from the movie Anna and the King now. It's a nice song. (",) I copied a whole lot of songs into my Windows Media Player library. I'm supposed to mark but I'm not doing it intensively enough.
Well, I'll be going town to mark with Cheryl tomorrow right after school. I hope to finish one class in one afternoon. I'm gonna speed mark. After that I'll be meeting Pit Kun for dinner at 6pm then continue with marking. I'll probably do the same thing until Wednesday night. I don't think she'll want to stay at home on Thursday since that's the 2nd last day of examination for the all pupils. They're only having Chinese Listening Comprehension on Friday and one can't study for it. Oh well, maybe I'll just mark alone in town on Thursday night then.
I hope there isn't any staff meeting on Friday. I doubt there'll be any actually. The cellgroup will be checking in to the chalet on Friday at 4pm. I'll probably join them early if I can finish all my work fast enough. If not, I can only meet them after 6pm. ;B
Okay, it's time to catch up with work! I hope to blog soon. It feels good to be able to blog so much once in a while. :)
jOyZ blogged at 9:32 PM
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Saturday, May 08, 2004
Some Worries
I just had dinner. I came back from worship practice before that. My parents had returned from Bangkok this afternoon and I had to leave for practice late so that I could open the house door for them. I managed to reach church at 4.30pm without having to take a cab down. Anyway, Timothy and Christina were late so we didn't start practice till about 5.10pm.
Before that, I was talking to Jocelyn about the meeting we had with Pastor James on Thursday. She has some reservations about the new service because it seems that we'll not be getting any support at all from the church - except for spiritual coverage, but that's about it.
I'm more concerned with the spiritual growth for each core leader because if the new service is really going to start, the core leaders will be the ones running the whole ministry. And are we in the right condition and have the correct mindset to take up the challenge? I don't know.
The other thing I'm worried about is people. Where are we going to get the people from? As it is, our circles of friends aren't big and due to the fact that we've been serving for the past 5 years in church to the extent of losing touch with our own friends, where is the harvest?
It seems that Pastor James is able to bring in undergraduates from SMU and he wants us to reach out to these people. That will mean extra burden and a lot of follow-ups on the core leaders' part. As it is, just planning alone for the new service is already taking its toll on us.
Sigh. I wonder what's gonna happen next. I guess the four of us, with Kris, Vivien and Alex, have to sit down and talk it out. I have a feeling Jocelyn is gonna give it up.
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Sorry, a break there. I was talking for a while with Pit Kun via Yahoo Messenger. She has gone to cook her dinner. I'm copying the Hillsongs album, Hope, into my media library. I wonder what other songs to copy now. Sigh. I don't feel like marking at all. Maybe I should go and read the book of James now.
La la la... BBL.
jOyZ blogged at 8:36 PM
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Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Perpetually Tired
I'm feeling perpetually tired of late. I wonder why.
I just woke up from a restless nap. I couldn't really sleep even though I was tired. At work today, I was in an irritable mood. I don't know why either. Mr Kong came over and asked if I was okay. It was so nice of him. If only my dad was like that. Speaking of which, I'm so thankful my parents aren't in Singapore right now. ;P
I don't quite know what to do now. There are tonnes of marking to complete: 7 classes of letters (from section 2 of Paper 1) for 3 Express and 5NA streams.
I'm wondering if I should go for cellgroup tonight. I think I should especially if I'm not going for the dinner on Friday. Or should I go for the dinner instead? Sigh.
I'm so sick of this job... sick of being a teacher. Should I quit? I know the opening which Junmin mentioned is still there but I guess I'm just too afraid to try. I don't know what I'm afraid of.
Sigh. What's wrong with me today...
:(
jOyZ blogged at 5:04 PM
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Today & Tomorrow
I think I'm blogging for a while before I go to bed.
It's been a terribly long day. Gina, Jann, Jocelyn, Alex and Vivien came over to my place to have a meeting regarding Youth and Young Adults ministries. We'll be meeting up with Pastor James on Thursday to discuss more. Well, the discussion was very long (ended at around 11.30pm) but pretty fruitful. We have some things to bring up to Pastor during the meeting on Thursday night.
I'm meeting James's supervisor tomorrow at 2pm after school. Bad timing. I need the time to mark my papers! *bleah* There is also cellgroup tomorrow night at 7.30pm in church as usual. I was supposed to do sharing for Chapter 24, but I forgot all about it until Gina mentioned about it just now! Sigh! So horrible. I'm getting really forgetful lately. There are too many deadlines at work... :( Despite all the reminders I've written in my organizer, I can't seem to follow the deadlines well. Sigh! Anyway, thankfully, Gina has offered to take over the sharing. I'll probably share another time when I'm not so bogged down with school stuffs.
There's vocal lesson on Thursday at 6pm before the meeting at Pastor's place at 8pm. It's going to be another packed day. I wonder how I'm going to finish all my marking. The deadline is actually on Kris's birthday (17th May)!!! I have to finish marking by 14th May latest because we're having an early celebration with her at chalet from 14th-16th May. Gosh, it looks like I won't get to sleep for the next few nights this week and next. I foresee myself being utterly zombified. As it is, I'm ready to zonk out in front of the laptop. :O
Alright, that's my cue to sleep. Bon nuit.
jOyZ blogged at 12:53 AM
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Saturday, May 01, 2004
Home Alone
I'm alone at home now. Greeeeaaaaaaaaat!!!!!!!!! But I have been playing the stupid poptart game until I can puke. Haha!
My brother went out with his friends for movie and dinner. I don't feel like going out even though Mag did ask if I were free. Basically, I'm not supposed to be free. There are 2 stacks of writing test for me to clear and I've only marked like 3-4 essays. Weep.
My stomach's rumbling like crazy. OK, so I'm hungry. But my brain is telling me that I'm not supposed to be hungry. I ate a lot for brunch today. I think it's because I didn't eat much for dinner last night.
I guess I'm going to have to cook dinner soon. Hm... my parents have stocked the fridge with a frightening amount of food. I wonder how my brother and I can ever finish everything. *shrugs* Oh well, I'll simply eat what I can. Heh.
Rare, isn't it? I'm blogging for the 2nd time on the same day. It just goes to show that I'm just procrastinating on my marking. Sigh! Teaching is a terrifying job. There is no rest at all even on public holidays during term time. Hence it's only RIGHT that teachers have the school holidays to enjoy!
La la la... Sayonara.
jOyZ blogged at 7:42 PM
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Parent-less
Yay oh yay! My parents went Bangkok and won't be back till 8th May (Saturday). It's so peaceful at home now! My brother and I were savouring - soaking in - the quietness at home the first night my parents weren't around!
OK, that sounds very bad. I'm not saying that my parents are irritating... but, erh, well, I guess that's what I've implied nonetheless.
Anyways, I can't type much. I'm feeling too hungry, so I'm signing off now! *poofiez*
jOyZ blogged at 9:45 AM
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