Thursday, October 29, 2009
Interesting fact: I've attended more funerals than weddings in my life.
Yeah, sad eh? Anyhoo, I was counting the funeral's I've attended so far: My great-grandmother, my grandfather, my grandmother, Jonathan Lim's grandmother, Nicklaus, Jace's dad.
And weddings? Aunty Stephanie's brother, Sher Ling's wedding, Joe and Sze Ying and recently Guo Fang's. Faith will soon have her wedding too. Heh.
Six funerals and four weddings. I attend funerals almost twice as much as weddings -.-. Geez. Rachel mentioned something about this in the Christian fellowship a few weeks ago, but I think I'll blog about that another day.
Anyhoo, I know I owe updates. A lot. But thing is, I've forgotten a lot too! So don't mind if there are some days missing. Heh.
Many weeks ago it was quite a spiritual week. Pastor Tan from CHC SG came over during the weekdays. It's his first time since the church building was opened 5 years ago. I couldn't attend all the sessions, but for the ones I did, he preached about the kingdom of God, and secondly about some major intellectual issues. Very enlightening! I haven't heard him preach in ages.
A few days later during the weekend, Pastor Joakim Lundqvist came to preach. It's his second time here, and my second time hearing him preach too. Well, what can I say? His messages were just such a blessing. I realize he likes to use real people and their testimonies, plus historical figures and their stories. First he talked about three high school kids in Sweden, and how they reached out to others. For the first, was a boy who had a big huge classmate that nobody talked to. Then one day he just asked whether he wanted to join him and his friends. The big guy thought it was a party, so he agreed, but later found out it was a prayer meeting! Haha! He stayed, although he felt very awkward. But later at home he prayed himself, and after that became a Christian. I've forgotten the 2nd person, but the third was just wow.
The third child was in high school, and one day she was about to cross the road and there was a person on the other side who was crying. Suddenly she heard God telling her to stand in the middle of the road and open up her arms. She was like "What?" But she obeyed. And when she did that, the crying girl just walked into her arms, and they hugged. In the middle of the road. With people walking by and cars waiting. Lol. They kept in contact, and she brought the crying girl to church later on. Turns out the crying girl was actually crying over her life and how it was, and that she was on her way to commit suicide when God told that person to stop and open up her arms. Totally a miraculous event. It's just so... wow.
Pastor Joakim also shared about two historical figures. The first was William Wilberforce. A British parliament member who helped to abloish slavery. He had a calling from a young age that God wanted him to free the slaves as it was inhumane, the way they were treated. Well, after decades of failures, he finally managed to abolish slavery, just days before his death. He never gave up, although he was close to giving up many times. However he exchanged many letters with John Wycliffe (or was it William Pitt? I can't quite remember), and this support from him kept him going.
His second story though, was more dramatic, and it wasn't a success. There was a man who once had a passion for reaching out to the workers in the coalmines, fields and all. He eventually became the leader of this movement, but the established church and religious people criticized him for mingling among the dirty and uncivilized people. He took it for a while, but later on he became bitter and angry, and after the continuing insults, he just gave up and quit. The revival he started collapsed and there was no more spirit among the people he had reached out to. So he decided to do the only thing he was good at. Painting. He didn't have much success, but he managed to keep himself alive for some time. He slowly went depressed and insane, to the extent of cutting off his ear lobe. As he got crazier, he painted "The Starry Night" and "Sunflowers". In the end, he finally killed himself with a shotgun. Yup. You might have guessed by now. It's Vincent Van Gogh.
Vincent Van Gogh used to be a pastor, and he led exactly like Jesus did. And the established religious authorities criticized him just like the Pharisees criticized Jesus. But Van Gogh gave up. And he lost it all. But Van Gogh was never remembered for his pastoral affairs, only his paintings. When we speak of Van Gogh, no one calls him a failed pastor, but they always call him a painter, an artist. And I've found out that practically no one I know ever had any idea Van Gogh used to be a pastor.
Anyhoo, Pastor Joakim's become one of my favourite speakers. Even though I've only heard him twice, I like his style already. God bless!
Chronicled
4:27 PM
e l e g y
Friday, October 9, 2009
Am I the only one who sees the obvious similarities between these two posters? -.-, geez, you'd think they'd be more original.
That was really random. Anyhoo, the first few weeks of school was alright I guess? The classes are mostly fine, and most of the lecturer's are friendly, but I'm cautious of the new typography lecturer. He's very harsh and strict, but he tries to make jokes, which none of us lighten up to, due to the other half of his attitude. But in the subsequent weeks he seemed better, and then getting worse -.-. So I don't know =/. And his classes are on Saturday! Oh man. I've been damn tired everytime I go for service, which isn't a good thing.
Anyhoo, I stayed over at Henry's place last weekend 'cause his brother was getting married, and thw wedding was on the weekend. Well, it was enjoyable. The wedding was at some fancy restaurant, which served pretty good food! The drinks were also free flow. And I mean any drink. So alcohol was free flow! Weeee~~~! I kept spamming the whiskey and coke all night long, and typical of me, I was sober throughout. Again. Okay, I mean it wasn't a club so I wasn't out to get myself hammered, but I was relieved that I wouldn't get high in the night. Of course, when it comes to clubbing, that's quite a drawback -.-.
Also, we gamed like hell at his home. We played the professional mode of Resident Evil 5, where we died many times, but still did quite well. We were playing mercenary mode, and just as Henry (using combat Jill) killed a chicken in the game (they give eggs) Jill shouted "Chicken!" Serious! Kok Kin heard it too! I don't think three of us could have misheard it right? It was like DAMN FUNNY! Lmao! We checked but we couldn't find any other case of this happening before. Hmmm? Oh, we completed Rainbow Six Vegas 2. And bloody hell, we got killed most often by people carrying FNC's! So there was one part where a guy was caught and wanted to shoot us, and we killed him. So we were like "You dare to point a gun at me? I've got an FNC!" LOL! We also died a lot of times in the game, especially at the end where you have to kill a combat helicopter. Zzz, the bloody missiles whooped us countless times. But we finished! Oh, and the designs for the houses and architecture are simply BRILLIANT! Seriously. There are some missions that take part in mansions and villas, and they were so beautiful that sometimes, while Henry and I were busy admiring the designs and layout, we got killed by the terrorists -.-.
And guess what? Turns out that the entire terrorist killings were started by your subordinate. Because you always sheltered him and covered for him, he felt weak and unable to release his potential, so he hatches this plan just to show you how smart and good he is. What the hell right? You kill him in the end. Anyhoo, it was a pretty fun time over there. Thanks, and congratulations Joe and Sze Ying on your wedding! The bitchy flower girl was super cute too!
Chronicled
11:16 AM
e l e g y
Sunday, October 4, 2009
I don't know whether I'm assuming too much, or being too assured.
Chronicled
6:07 PM
e l e g y
Shana, who I met that day itself, sitting beside me. She's Fei Yan's friend, who happened to chance upon me. She helped me put on the eyeliner for later. Heh.
Me and my mask. Yeaps. With eyeliner. You can't freaking breathe in that mask and hood -.-.
This is Bee Lian, one of the people entering the scariest costume contest. She's like some haunted rag doll or something. She's freaking cute though! And she can do that evil iaugh thingy.
Other people in the costume competition. Newspaper witch and a Freddy/Jason hybrid. What is he? Freason? Jaddy? HAHA!
The newspaper witch. He probably had the funniest costume -.-, lol.
Bee Lian and Shazz. Shazz was like some zombified Joker. Complete with a suit and that now-famous Heath Ledger Joker makeup. And yeah, I realize where he's aiming -.-.
My turn to walk. I may look calm and collected, but it was really hard to see, and I couldn't breathe properly. Geez.
This was Joshua's costume. It was probably the coolest and should've won (some other dude won, and it didn't even look scary). His right arm had freaking garden scissors attached to it!
Breast shooter, Bee Lian and Terry (my front door neighbour). Why is everyone aiming at her chest?!
You should know this mask if you watched Scary Movie! I shouted "WAZZAP!" to the guy and he just stared at me. He doesn't even know the origin of the mask. What the.
Some dude with a freaking huge sword on his arm. Reminds me of Nightmare from the Soul Calibur series.
There were several musical performances, but Justin and his band played metal, and he rocked the entire house! Everyone stood up for Psychosocial and plenty of people head-banged. Freaking immense! 
And I stole some of the pictures from Wai Kwan's Facebook. Heh, sorry! She's super cute in this pumpkin hat though.
