A World of My Own

ELS Word Fair

2011-07-01T16:46:00.003+08:00

For the past 2 days (29-30 June 2011), UTAR English Language Society has organised an interesting and fun-filled event known as the Word Fair. This six-level competition was held in several blocks within the campus from 10am until 5pm, where there were different word game in each block.

All the participants were given a card where they had to go from block to block to take part in all the games and collect stamps along the way. And they have the chance to win up to RM200 cash prize. But they have to complete all the challenges in 6 stations to determine whether they are in the running to win the cash prizes of RM200 (1st place), RM100 (2nd place) and RM50 (3rd place). The winners of this competition would be determined based on the total scores obtained from all the 6 stations. Of course, they have to submit their cards first to finalise their scores and claim a special gift for themselves.

Referring back to the card, non-members received an orange card while ELS members a blue one. Why it is different? As members, some students have the privilege to play one round absolutely FREE! After completing their trial round, their cards would be switched to the orange ones and they have to pay RM1, just like non-members, if they wanna play again to improve their scores.

As mentioned above, there were a total of 6 games with 10 minutes allocated for each. Let me briefly explain how each of the games is played:

Block B: Lost & Found
A simple question is given and what a participant needs to do is to search for the letters of the answer to given question within the same block. The letters are pasted everywhere on the walls or any objects around the block (except washrooms and classrooms). The participant has to gather all the letters and returns to the station within 10 minutes. 3 points will be given to the participant whether he/she completes the challenge or not. This game is considered the easiest and the maximum score obtained from this station is 10 points and not more than that.

Block C: What's Next?
In this station, a participant is given a word and he/she has to form a word chain by creating the next word using the last letter of the previous word. This sounds easy, doesn't it? Not as easy as you think. All the words listed have to be in the same category. For this game, the participant is given a choice to choose the level of difficulty: easy and hard. In the easy category, the contestant has to form words either in the animate or inanimate objects. Whereas for the hard one, he/she can choose one of the available categories (countries, colours, occupations/careers, fruits, vegetables, animals). Participants have to list down as many words as possible within 10 minutes and they will receive 3 points for each word if the number of words listed is less than 50 and 4 points if more than 50.

Block D: Eureka! I've Done It!
For this game, what participants are required to do is to randomly draw 7 letters from a box and form as many words as possible. If they are stuck with the 7 letters, they have 3 chances of reshuffle, meaning they can change for another set of letters for 3 times. But the following sets of letters are given by the station masters instead. While participants are forming words, the station masters or helpers will write down the words and calculate the total score for all the words formed by the participants. Most of the letters are given 1 point while some letters are either 2 or 3 points.

Block E: Mix Us! (shifted to Block D on 2nd day)
The way this word game is played it that it is almost similar as the previous game, that is forming as many words as they can. But the only differences are that the participants are given a set of 7-letter word and they can only reshuffle once. The scoring system is also the same as the previous game.

Block G: Zebra Crossing
This is actually a game of crossword puzzle. Participants can select which crossword puzzle they want to solve and try their best to fill in the puzzle with as many words as possible, based to the hints given. The number of correct answers will be the score.

Block H: Fun Search
Basically, the game available in this station is word search. A list of words from different categories are given to the participants, which they have to search for those words as much as they can in a sea of words printed on small pieces of paper provided. There are different themes for this word search e.g transportations, occupations, friendship, musical instruments etc. And according to the station masters, there are 2 different themes available for every hour. The score obtained from this game is the number of words that participants could find within the allocated time.

My own personal experiences
Well, as for myself, I find that the Word Fair is very challenging indeed, but yet I really enjoyed it very much. I managed to complete 2 rounds during the 2-day competition. As mentioned earlier, I played the first round FOC as I'm an ELS member. And I forked out an extra RM9 for additional round as I wanna improve my scores.

For the trial round, I managed to obtain a total of 445 points, the highest being 189 from the 3rd game. I decided to play for another time since I have the chance to play for another 3 rounds. But I have to pay, which I don't really mind anyway. I managed to improve my total score this time, especially in 3rd, 4th and 6th game. I don't know what's my total score, but it definitely has improved a lot.

The scores for each station varies. There are 3 key stations in the competition - What's Next?, Eureka! I've Done It! and Mix Us! - where participants can score very high marks, which they could score more than 100 points.

There's one participant who scores over 400 in the What's Next? game. Wow! That's really impressive! I played the game thrice (easy twice, hard one) and the maximum I could get is 102. I think the reason I couldn't score higher marks is that I face difficulties in finding the next appropriate words to continue the word chain. For the hard level, I chose the Countries category and most of the countries I've listed began and ended with the letter A.

As for Mix Us!, I learnt that one participant managed to score over 400 (401 to be exact). Well, I scored over 100 for both my attempts in the game (131 for first time, 186 for second). Then, for Eureka! I've Done It!, I scored 189 in the first time I played and almost doubled my score (325) in the second. Well, I received some help from others while playing this time.

For the remaining three games, the maximum scoretthat participants can obtain from each station does not exceed 50. Lost & Found offers the least points among all the 6 games, 10 points is the maximum. Due to the low score, I learnt that not much students would drop by Block B to walk around the block searching for letters. As for Zebra Crossing, the score obtained is the number of correct answers in the crossword puzzle, in which I believe the limit is 20.

Fun Search is the word game I've played the most throughout the whole competition. I played for a total of 4 times and attempted 4 categories, namely transportations, friendship, musical instruments and Happy New Year! There is one time I managed to locate all the given words. which is the theme of friendship, for a maximum score of 30.

But I almost forgot to pay while I was playing the last round but said that I've paid the RM1 when Gar Wei asked me. Because of this matter, she was furious at me and confessed that she almost have to pay the RM1 herself. Anyway, I apologised and paid her.

Then, the competition came to the end after I completed my last stint. We started packing up and returned the tables, chairs and notice board back to their original places. While in Block B, I walked around and took down all the letters pasted on walls and other objects. Because of my efforts, I was rewarded. And the organising committee had a post-mortem session right after this while I headed home.

Double Joy for Manchester

2011-05-15T19:27:00.006+08:00

Manchester has a double celebration as both United and City have reasons to celebrate. United have won a record 19th Premier League title after a 1-1 draw with Blackburn Rovers. Wayne Rooney scored a penalty to seal the title for United after Blackburn goalkeeper Paul Robinson brought down Javier Hernandez in the penalty box. Meanwhile, City won their first silverware in 35 years when they edged Stoke 1-0 in the FA Cup final, with Yaya Toure netting the winning goal in the 74th minute.

Inhumane Act

2011-05-09T12:12:00.002+08:00

I'm referring to the bully case that happened recently. I really pity the victim for being bulied by her classmates. At the same time, the way she's being bullied is totally inconsiderate. How could her friends bully her just like that? Did she do anything wrong or offended them that she deserve such a ordeal?

Certainly, the bully case has caused outrage from many people. The nation wouldn't have come across such a case if the video clip has not been circulated. I am in a total shock upon discovering such an act which I deem as inhumane. How could her friends treat the girl like that? I really don't understand. Perhaps there is conflict between them, but they shouldn't have bullied her.

Now the 4 students is paying the price for what they've done. They all are suspended from school for 14 days. I'm not sure if this is an ideal punishment for them, but I think they ought to be punished even more severely for causing trauma to the victim.

There is a follow-up story saying the students have apologised to the victim for doing such a thing to her. I'm not sure if the girl would be willing to accept their apology, but even if she does, she'll never forget for the rest of her life that they've traumatised her before.

I seriously hope that this would not happen anymore. Speaking the truth, I have never bullied any of my friends before. Neither have I been bullied before.

听妈妈的话 (Listen to Mother's Words)

2011-05-08T14:56:00.006+08:00

It's Mother's Day today. And I discover the lyrics of the song by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou, Ting Ma Ma De Hua (Listen to Mother's Words) is very meaningful indeed.

小朋友，你是否是很多问号
为什么别人在那看漫画
我却在学画画，对着钢琴说话
别人在玩游戏
我却靠在墙壁背我的ABC
我说我要一台大大的飞机
但却得到一台旧旧录音机
为什么要听妈妈的话
长大后你就会开始懂了这段话

长大后我开始明白
为什么我跑得比别人快
飞得比别人高
将来大家看的都是我画的漫画
大家唱的都是我写的歌
妈妈的辛苦不让你看见
温暖的食谱在她心里面
有空就多多喔喔她的手
把手牵着一起梦游

听妈妈的话别让她受伤
想快快长大才能保护她
美丽的白发幸福中发芽
天使的魔法温暖中慈祥

在你的未来
音乐是你的王牌
拿王牌谈个恋爱
唉！我不想把你教坏
还是听妈妈的话吧
晚点谈恋爱吧
我知道你未来的路
但妈比我更清楚
你会开始学其他同学在书包写东写西
但我建议最好写妈妈我会用功读书
用功读书怎么会从我嘴巴说出
不想你输所以要叫你用功读书

妈妈织给你的毛衣
你要好好的收着
因为母亲节到时我要告诉她我还留着
对了我会遇见周润发
所以你可以跟同学炫耀
赌神未来是你爸爸
我找不到童年写的情书
你写完不要送人
因为过两天你会在操场上捡到
你会开始喜欢上流行歌
因为张学友开始准备唱吻别

Sleepless nights

2011-05-02T12:04:00.000+08:00

I don't know why I can't sleep well at night during the exam period.

Ever since I return to Kampar after attending the Easter celebration at CGBC Ipoh on 23 April, I've been experiencing insomnia. I couldn't sleep at all, even though I tried persuading myself to go to sleep.

Perhaps I'm a little bit anxious whether I'm able to do well in the final exam. But I was calm and didn't feel nervous at all for the first 2 papers. In fact, I don't know why I could sleep well on the night after I took my first paper but not the rest of the nights.

Due to lack of sleep, I felt tired during the day and wanted to sleep. But I kept reminding myself that I have to keep myself awake and do revision. I prayed hard that I am able to survive the exam period and sleep well after the exam is over.

Goodbye, My Friend

2011-04-16T20:54:00.008+08:00

Yes, that's the song chosen by Tan Renjie for the graduating EL Y3S2 batch to sing during the graduation dinner on 15 April at Pakeeza Restaurant Ipoh. Before the dinner, we had several rehearsals to get everyone to be familiar with the song.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No. no, no, no (x2)

Listen little child
There will come one day
When you will be able
Able to say

Never mind the pain
Or the aggravation
You'll know there's a better way
for you and me to be

Look for the rainbow
In every storm
Fly like an angel
Heaven sent to me

Goodbye my friend
(I know you're gone, you said you're gone, but I can still feel you here)
It's not the end
(You gotta keep it strong before the pain turns into fear)
So glad we made it
Time will never change it
No, no, no (No, no, no, no)

Just a little girl
Big imagination
Never letting no one take it away
Went into the world (Into the world)
What a revelation
She found there's a better way
for you and me to be

Look for the rainbow
In every storm
Find out for certain
Love's gonna be there for you
You'll always be someone's baby

Goodbye my friend
(I know you're gone, you said you're gone, but I can still feel you here)
It's not the end
(You gotta keep it strong before the pain turns into fear)
So glad we made it
Time will never change it
No, no, no

No, no, no, no
You know it's time to say goodbye
No, no, no, no

The times when we would play about
The way we used to scream and shout
We'd never dreamt you'd go your own sweet way

Look for the rainbow
In every storm
Find out for certain
Love's gonna be there for you
You'll always be someone's baby

Goodbye my friend
(I know you're gone, you said you're gone, but I can still feel you here)
It's not the end
(You gotta keep it strong before the pain turns into fear)
So glad we made it
Time will never change it
No, no. no (No, no, no, no)
(repeat)

You know it's time to say goodbye
You know it's time to say goodbye
Goodbye my friend....
~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was indeed an awesome night. I arrived there at the restaurant at around 6pm that night and saw Jia Ling was outside. She was there for ushering. So I went up to meet my friends. As I got there, Hannah asked me if I've bought any gifts for exchange. Oh crap! I totally forgot abt it. She told me since I didn't bring any, I won't be involved in the gift exchange session later.

I noticed all my friends were well-dressed. Oh, I amde another blunder: I wasn't wearing formal attire for the event. not like the rest. I regretted over it but have no choice but to bear with it since I had no chance to go back to my own house to change.

Soon, all my friends and lecturers invited have arrived. And Soeh Chen and Manmeet were the MCs of the night. First, before the dinner began, Seoh Chen expressed her appreciation by dancing. Wow, very impressive indeed! Later Yin Mun at Chen's invitation performed a song. After that, all the lecturers and my friends were invited for the self-service buffet dinner. There were a lot of dishes served, from the main course to desserts and drinks.

After the makan session, it's time for everyone to sit back and enjoy the night. Eugene, as the course rep, delivered his welcoming speech and acknowledged the lecturers who have taught the class during the 3 years. Later there were 2 song presentations followed: first was a duet of Mei Yun and Yin Mun with the song Shalala and the second was by myself, singing Spice Girls' Stop.

Games followed and later the gift exchange session took place. All my friends received a gift presented by all the lecturers there. I didn't get my share as I didn't brought any. Then it's souvenir presentation to the lecturers. They each received a hand-made photo frame bearing the photo of the whole class clad in traditional constume. Those photo frames were made by NST (Nisha, Subatra and Chen) weeks before the dinner took place.

Then , the moment that everyone has been waiting for: the song presentation by EL Y3S2. As mentioned above, GG and the girls plus me presented the song entitled Goodbye by Spice Girls.The dinner offically drawn to a close with the MCs thanking everyone for attending such a memorable dinner. Later, it's time for taking photos. My classmates took the opportunity to take photos with the lecturers for the last time before everyone parts their own way after graduation.

Not A Good Day

2011-04-11T19:14:00.016+08:00

Sigh... things don't really go smoothly for me today.

First, I couldn't sleep the whole night yesterday cos the slides for one of the two presentations are not done yet. I have been worrying about how my group is going to present if the slides are not ready. But then, in the end, my group didn't present as one of my group members didn't turn up.

When I go to school, I park my scooter at the compound in front of Block B and am going to go for class. But then, the venue for PW class is still being used as exam halls for MUET. Eugene ask me to go check for the new venue. I find it out from FAS FGO in Block A and tell him the class is in Block H. Then, I travel there by my scooter.

When I arrive there, I receive message from him, telling me that the venue has changed to DDk3. I was like huh? But without asking further, I proceed to Block D for PW lecture. Oh, we're supposed to do our presentation on the proposal assignment. And lots have been drawn: my group is the first. But, my group has to give way to other groups first cos Monica is not there yet. Only 2 groups manage to present their proposal during the lecture.

Later, my classmates and I have to take the trouble to go back to Block H again for OJ tutorial. As I mention earlier, I'm supposed to present twice today, one for OJ and another for PW. But Eugene informs me that Careena could not make it. So we have no choice but to postpone our presentation to Wednesday. And Ann's group presents its news website The Buzz. Although we didn't get to present, it is a blessing in disguise that we have more time to prepare for our presentation.

Alright, right after Mr Teh's tutorial, all of us have to go back to Block B for Ms Joginder's tutorial. And my group is the first to present while the last presentation is from Ann's group again (they presented twice in a day). Then, after the class, Tan Renjie summons all of us to stay back for a while to practise singing Spice Girls' Goodbye (the song we're going to sing in the graduation dinner in Pakeeza Restaurant Ipoh this Friday). We have a few rounds of rehearsals, singing the song over and over again until Renjie is satisfied with it. She asks if we need a final rehearsal before the dinner and we all agree. So she arranges for the final song practice to be held right after the OJ lecture and dismisses everyone.

And before we enter into the classroom, something bad happens. It's my shoe! The sole to one of my leather shoes worn out (above). Actually, I've been sensing something's wrong with my shoes today. And when I check, I had a shock to find that the shoe is not in good condition. I am like daunted cos I wore the same pair of shoes for my previous presentation and they are still in good condition. What really struck me is how the base of the left shoe (the top one) can become koyak within a few weeks. Seriously, I need a brand new pair of leather shoes.

Farewell, Yu Shia!

2011-04-06T00:01:00.010+08:00

Yu Shia, it is my pleasure to get to know u. I've forgotten how we met for the first time but I'm pretty sure I met u in Campus Connect. I remembered all the fun time we had together with other Connectors.

Remember this photo? I know that u mentioned that u are very short compared to me. But to me, your height is quite okay and almost equal to the normal heights of other girls.

I'm sure u would remember this cupcake as well. I paired up with u to design this cupcake during a competition in Campus Connect's Celebration for Love. Though we didn't win, I enjoyed working together to produce such a wonderful cupcake.

And the two photos (above and below) were taken during your farewell dinner at Face to Face Noodle Shop. There, we had a great fellowship together with the rest. Pei Lee even bought u a lovely farewell gift and asked us to write our wishes to u in a card. I hope that u've read the card by now. And u even enlarged Pei Lee's face in the above photo in recognition for her willingness to snap the photo below.

But now, u're leaving Campus Connect to pursue your dream. I know today's the day where u're supposed to report yourself at the institution where u're going to do nursing. I sincerely wish u all the best during the duration of 9 years including working years. May God be with u all the time in anything u do and anywhere u go.

Though I will not be seeing u for a long time, I hope that u'll still remember me and the rest. I hope that we'll be able to meet again one day. May our friendship lasts forever! Take care!

Common People for Extraordinary Things

2011-04-05T18:29:00.012+08:00

"God uses common people to do uncommon things."

This above sentence really struck me as yesterday was the final discussion session for Outlive Your Life in Campus Connect CG. It is true that God uses common people to achieve extraordinary things. From the video shown last night, God uses two commoners to change the lives of the other. One is Patricia who donated one of kidneys to another woman named Marla. Another is Brian, a basketball coach who helps and inspire his players to play well.

One very fine example from the Bible is David. He was just a small shepherd boy. He volunteered himself to fight the 9-foot tall giant Goliath when no one dared to approach the giant. And he defeated the giant with just a sling and a stone. He even used Goliath's sword and cut his head off.

Another example that I can think of is Firestar from Warriors novel series by Erin Hunter. From an ordinary cat, Rusty was transformed into Firestar, a leader of ThunderClan. He has been serving his Clan well as a warrior and then took over the leadership from Bluestar.

"Rusty was originally a kittypet (house cat) who has been wondered what's beyond his garden. So one fine day, he had the boldness to step into the woods. He got into a fight with another cat Graypaw who was an apprentice.

Soon, a few more cats appeared and it turned out to be ThunderClan leader Bluestar and Graypaw's mentor Lionheart. Bluestar was amazed by Rusty's skills and praised Rusty for his brave deeds. She even invited him to join her Clan as ThunderClan was desperate of needing more warriors to fend the Clan from other Clans - RiverClan, ShadowClan and WindClan.

Rusty agreed and the next day Lionheart and Runningwind came to escort him back to the Clan. But as soon as the other cats discovered that Rusty was of kittypet origin, some of them tormented him. Longtail was one of them who fought with Rusty but the kittypet managed to give him a good fight.

And Rusty's collar broke during the fight, signalling approval from StarClan that Rusty can join ThunderClan. Bluestar gave him his apprentice name Firepaw in honour of his glowing pelt when sunlight shone on him.

Firepaw became close friends with Graypaw and they were always together. But two other apprentices, Dustpaw and Sandpaw, disliked Firepaw because of his origin. And Firepaw was involved in romance when he fell in love with the Clan medicine cat Spottedleaf, a slender tortoiseshell she-cat.

And before Firepaw's arrival, Spottedleaf has received a message from StarClan: "Fire will save the Clan". But Bluestar doubted the prophecy by saying that all the Clans were afraid of fire and how fire can save ThunderClan. Spottedleaf was unsure but she said that it was the message StarClan chose to share with her.

But unfortunately, Spottedleaf encountered an untimely death. She was killed by ShadowClan warrior Clawface while defending the apprentice den. And Frostfur's kits and Yellowfang went missing at the same time. Firepaw and Graypaw went and managed to find Yellowfang who went to find the kits once she noticed they were missing and didn't know Spottedleaf was slain.

Soon, Firepaw, Graypaw and Yellowfang returned and Yellowfang replaced Spottedleaf as the medicine cat. Firepaw and Graypaw fought well in a battle and received their warrior names, Fireheart and Graystripe, at the end of Into the Wild.

The duo was assigned their first mission as warriors--to find WindClan and bring the Clan back into the forest. They succeeded in their mission and Fireheart became friends with Onewhisker. Fireheart was appointed as ThunderClan deputy after the death of Lionheart and Redtail. Fireheart himself was surprised by Bluestar's choice of her deputy and pledged to serve her and the Clan well. He was of great assistance to her, carrying out his duties as the deputy.

Fireheart didn't realise that Sandstorm (previously Sandpaw) fell in love with her until his former apprentice Cinderpelt told him. Sandstorm was thankful that Fireheart has saved her from falling off a cliff and developed a romantic interest on the former kittypet.

When Bluestar discovered that WindClan has been stealing prey from ThunderClan territories, she lost faith in her own Clan and treated them as traitors. And she only trusted her deputy. Furthermore, she even declared war with StarClan which she claimed that StarClan has abandoned her Clan. She even prepared to launch an attack on WindClan. But Fireheart realised that this was a fight which was not supposed to happen. Without her knowledge, he went to see WindClan leader Tallstar, asking him to persuade Bluestar. Tallstar did what he requested and the fight was called off.

Bluestar was furious that her deputy intervened with her plans. And she's further livid that Tigerclaw has been plotting to kill her so that he could take over. Tigerclaw sent a dog pack to destroy ThunderClan, but Fireheart was aware about his plans when he noticed a trail of killed rabbits lying in the way leading to ThunderClan. Fireheart brought along a few warriors to divert the dog pack. And out of the sudden, Bluestar appeared and led the pack into a gorge. She sacrificed herself in the process. Bluestar managed to see the truth that Fireheart was the fire that will save ThunderClan and has confidence that Fireheart will lead the Clan well.

Soon after Bluestar's death, Fireheart made a trip to the Moonstone to receive his nine lives and leader's name. He was accompanied by ThunderClan medicine cat during the journey. His old life was stripped away and nine chosen cats came to give him his nine lives, namely Lionheart, Redtail, Sliverstream, Runningwind, Brindleface, Swiftpaw, Yellowfang, Spottedleaf and Bluestar. And Bluestar gave him his new name, Firestar. He was officially a leader.

After he became leader, Firestar has been leading the Clan well and not only that, he even brought all the four Clans to another new place as the forest was being destroyed. They moved to the area surrounding a large lake. And it was Leafpool whom spotted the lake, indicating that the Clans would be residing in the area around the lake."

Impressive, eh? But that's the truth: God can use any commoners to fulfill/achieve extraordinary things. Nick Vujicic was born without limbs and yet he has been inspiring others. I am just an ordinary person too. I'm not sure whether God would use me to achieve greater things in life, but I believe He will.

CF Easter Celebration 2011: Are You Still Waiting?

2011-03-30T10:14:00.012+08:00

Are you still waiting? That's a very good question!

That was the theme that Wendy Lee (the organsing chairperson) chose for the Easter Celebration Night held at IDK8 yesterday. A lot of people turned up for the event.

I went there at around 7.30pm after dinner. As I offered myself to do the ushering, I needed to be there one hour earlier. So my duty was to welcome those who came for the event and directed them to the registration counter handled by Carlie and Melody Hor. Of course, I have several helpers with me.

It was very quiet in the beginning as no one was seen around the area. But I carried on with my ushering. I guessed most of the people were still having dinner and probably they will arrive around 8.30pm. Some people turned up early and registered themselves first. But they were told that they will only be allowed to enter at 8.30pm. So some of them went somewhere else instead of waiting aimlessly there.

Approaching 8.30pm, as expected, more and more people came for the event. My friend Ms Elizabeth Lee, a lecturer at FBF faculty, came and dropped by for the event after she finished her class at around 8pm. At 8.30pm sharp, the participants were seen rushing into the lecture hall.

The event was chaired by two lovely girls Melody Leong and Gan Ziyin. They welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming. Then, they passed the time to Wendy to lead in worship. She only chose one song (Who Am I) for this event.

Then it's back to the MCs. Without wasting much time, they handed the stage to the drama team. Ada Yeoh was the director while Shu Jian narrated the story. And the plot was based on the story of the prodigal son found in the Bible.

The story began with a man (Steven Lew) in a wheelchair waiting every day at the window, wishing that his son would return to his side. His children came in and asked if he's still waiting for him. He replied yes and the eldest son Matthew (Roy Ong) commented about what his younger brother Max has done to the family. But the man still treat Max as his son.

The scene changed to a flashback of 10 years ago. Matthew was having a meal with his father when Max (Kelvin Wong) returned with injuries and bruises on his body. Matthew commented that it must be from some "stupid gang fights". Max begged his father to give him money as he was in debts again, owing them $20000. Max even said that his father would share half of his money when he's older. But Matthew strongly objected, saying that he's still behaving as a brat. But in the end, their father had no choice but to give in to Max's request. He wrote him a cheque with a large sum of money.

The next day, Max quickly disappeared from home. He squandered all his wealth into gambling, clubbing and even drugs. And soon he has spent all his money, but he needed more money to buy more drugs for himself. He made a return home.

While back at home, Max desperately search for money in the house. His sister and father noticed him and tried to stop him. They even grabbed him tight but Max struggled to break free from them. When they refused to let him go, Max grabbed a stick and hit his father until he broke one of his legs. He managed to escape.

Max has a little money with him. His friends who used to hang out with him soon left him one by one. Max became a lonely person and soon lived a poor life. He languished around the streets and even got his food from rubbish bins. Poor Max! He also experienced some kind of hallucination because he was too high from taking esctasy pills. Soon, his imagination vanished and he pointed to the sky and said "it's all your fault".

Two police officers who were on patrol finally tracked him and brought him to the police station. Max was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and sent to rehab centre after his jail sentence. Max suffered a lot and he was in desperate need of drugs. And there's one scene where demons came to taunt him. But Max remembered what his father always told about the Heavenly Father and cried out to God asking Him to save him from all the troubles he got himself into. He even promised that he will do good and spread the gospel.

Max was getting much better but soon he has forgotten his promise. And one fine day, he got to know that a pastor (Jensen) came to conduct Bible study and decided to check it out. When he got there, the pastor noticed him and asked him to join in. Max was reluctant at first but the pastor persuaded him to come.

Since then, he has been attending Bible studies. And one day he decided to consult the pastor. The pastor confessed that he was just like Max too at one point. But God saved his life and the pastor believed God will save Max too.

And soon Max was finally freed from the rehab centre. He wanted to get home to see his father but was hesitated to return home. He regretted all his past actions and feared that his family wouldn't forgive him. Anyway, he decided to go home.

Back at home, his father was still waiting for his son's return as usual. And suddenly he saw someone familiar and asked, "Max? Is that u?" Max was standing at a very far distance but he rushed to his father's side. But he was shocked that his father was sitting on a wheel chair and asked why. But the man replied that "it doesn't matter and the good thing is that u're finally came back, Max". Max asked for forgiveness from his father but his father has already forgiven. Max wondered "how could this be? After all that I done to u, u forgive me just like that?"

Max's father said he always told Max bedtime stories where he mentioned about Jesus Christ dies on the cross and forgives all those people who has sinned. In the end, the man sang the song So You Would Come and the rest of the cast soon joined him in singing the song, while Max continued crying. The drama came to an end with Steven getting up from the wheelchair and he bowed together with the drama team. Well done, peeps! U all did a splendid job!

Actually the whole drama was recorded and uploaded to YouTube by tyshu.

Are You Still Waiting?

Then, Ziyin was back again and she introduced the speaker for the night and welcomed Pastor Nicky Ling of Praise Community Centre to share his sermon. Pastor Nicky has nothing much to share and he showed a video of who God really is. Then he received a token of appreciation from Mr Andrew, CF co-advisor. Oh, another advisor Bro Marn Foo was there too but not Mr & Mrs K. Then there was a dance performance by some of the dancers.

Then several annoucements were made by the MCs before refreshment time. All the students and lecturers were mingling around and chatting with one another while enjoying the sandwiches, hot dogs and the drinks. Crazy photo sessions even took place mostly outside the lecture hall while some photos were taken in IDK8. Several EL students were seen interviewing some people for their newspaper assignment. For more photos of this event, pls refer to the following albums by CF Kampar: Easter Celebration part 1 and part 2.

I was touched while watching the drama. I almost cried but managed to hold back my tears. The drama reminded me of the Easter drama which I was involved in Campus Connect 2 years ago. The storyline of the drama was exactly the same one from the Bible and slightly more simpler than the one mentioned above. I was taking up the role as the elder son to a rich tycoon (Richard) in Kampar that sells min bao kai (a famous delicacy in Kampar) while Eugene was the younger son. Shirley Lee was the narrator.

That's all I have to say about the CF Easter Celebration.

Another first time

2011-03-14T15:59:00.002+08:00

Wow... I have another first-time experience in my life: being a secretary.

Yup, u heard that right. I become the secretary of a meeting, taking down minutes of what's going on during the meeting. It is actually one of my assignments this semester which is documentation of meetings. And this assignment is to be done in groups of 3 or 4.

I am in the same group with Eugene and Monica. And we're given the topic on Writing in Workplace. We discussed about our roles and it is supposed that Monica will be the secretary while GG and I are the ones presenting on our topic. But, I volunteer myself to be the secretary as I want to get experience of fitting in the shoes of a secretary. Both my group mates accepted my suggestion.

I worked on the memo of the meeting and first sent to Eugene for him to check if there's any problems. He said no problem after reviewing it and gave me the green light to send out the memo to the rest of my coursemates, which I did on the day I received his approval.

Our meeting is held during the Prof Writing lecture and it is a great one. Eugene and Monica present on their respective sections while I take note of the flow of the meeting and take down relevant notes. During the meeting, what I notice is that Eugene, as the President of our company Coveright Surfaces (M) Sdn Bhd, interacts well with the employees by asking them questions. Then he passes the time over to Monica for her section, followed by Q & A session. Meeting's over when there are no more questions from the floor.

(By the way, Eugene isn't the one who comes out of the name of our company, I do. He says it doesn't matter anyway, so I just simply choose one name for our company since I'm sending out the memo to my fellow classmates few days before the meeting.)

It is indeed a great experience for myself taking on the role of a secretary for the first time in my life. I don't have the chance to be appointed to the post in any of the clubs and socieities that I've joined both in secondary schools and also here in Utar. Since this is a golden opportunity, I just grab it and get some experience.

And no doubt, the post of a secretary is usually taken up by females. But this is not true all the time. Imagine a society or club which have only members of the male gender, who's gonna be the secretary in this case? Take for examples, the societies or clubs in my alma mater SMJK Sam Tet which is a school for boys. Girls can be spotted around the school but with only a small number of students. If that's the case, who's gonna be secretaries in situations like this? There aren't no girls to fit in those roles in this case (if you leave out those pursuing Form 6 in the school). So boys have to step in to take up the challenges.

Well, as for my case, I don't really have to be one cause Monica is in our group and she can handle that. But I dare to be different by choosing to be the secretary to break the chain of having all females as secretaries for this assignment as the rest of the groups are all females except ours. Another reason is that I find Monica is better at talking than writing while I'm the other way around. She managed to speak well in all her previous presentations as far as I notice, whereas for myself, sometimes I tend to get stuck when I'm unable to find the right words to get the meassge across. But if I'm well-prepared, I wouldn't face such a problem in most cases. As for writing, Monica's language is quite understandable but she needs to improve on her language as sometimes I don't really get the meaning of what she's writing. As for myself, I find that my language skills and vocabulary is quite good (not boasting here). So I think it's better for me to use my advantage to the fullest in this situation.

Passion - We Are Hungry

2011-03-11T09:34:00.002+08:00

Verse 1
Lord, I want more of You
Living water rain down on me
Lord, I need more of You
Living breath of life come fill me up

Chorus
We are hungry, we are hungry
We are hungry for more of You
We are thristy, oh Jesus
We are thirsty for more of You

Verse 2
Lord, I want more of You
Holy Spirit rain down on me
Lord, I need more of You
Living breath of life come fill me up

Bridge
We lift our holy hands up
We want to touch You
We lift our voices higher
and higher and higher to You

Psalm 37:4

2011-03-11T00:00:00.005+08:00

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (NIV 2011)

CF Camp 2011

2011-03-10T14:40:00.006+08:00

Yay!! The annual CF camp is here again. Here are the particulars of the camp:

Date 24-27 May 2011 (one week before May 2011 semester)
Venue Harvest Haven, Gopeng
Speaker Elder Jimmy Ho (pastor of Elim Gospel Hall)
Theme Alive in Christ
Fees RM140/=

I really excited about this camp cos it will be my last one before I graduate from Utar. The campsite is really nice as I have been there once three years ago during Campus Connect's S+URGE camp 2008. It'll be good to make a return there again to see if the place is different from the last time I was there. Oh yeah, this time, Foundations students will be joining us this time around as they've missed out the previous one due to last minute change of their schedule. And one more thing that brightens me is that it won't clash with any CGBC camps this time, unlike the past 2 years. But I'm not sure if there's any other events that will take place within that period, but hopefully there aren't. Anyway, I'm SERIOUSLY looking forward to this camp!!!

A Tribute To All Women

2011-03-08T12:09:00.011+08:00

Every year, March 8 marks the International Women's Day. Women have been playing significant roles in this world, be it in communities or at homes.In the modern era, women are no longer confined to just the home but they can go out to work or even become leaders. They prove that they can be as equal as their male counterpart.

Besides living their own lives, women are also important in the constitutions of families in which they have the role of mothers lying on their shoulders. Women enter the world of motherhood when they experience 9 months of pregnancies and later endure hardship when they're in labour. The reason why women have to deal with suffering and pain is because of Eve who was deceived and become a sinner. But women will be saved through chlidbearing--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety (1 Timothy 2:14b-15). After giving birth, their next responsibilities is to take care of the new lives that they've brought into this world, raising them up and showering them with love and care.

Apart from that, women usually take care of the household in which they are responsible of making their residences a better place of living for the comfort of their respective families. Without their contributions, everywhere in the house would be in a total mess. Therefore, being a woman is not easy as you think. Therefore, a special day is dedicated to women in recognition of their tireless efforts and the significant roles they've played. I sincerely wish all the women around the world a Happy Women's Day!

In conjunction with the International Women's Day, there's one meaningful story which both the genders should read. The following story instils better understanding on women's role which is beneficial to both the males and the females. Enjoy reading! And have a good laugh, ladies!

A man was SICK and TIRED of going to work every day while his wife stayed at home. And he's further jealous of her as she receives a lot of Women's Day wishes and complements.

He wanted her to see what he went through. So he prayed:

"Dear Lord, I go to work every day and put in 8 hours while my wife merely stays at home. I want her to know what I go through. So, plase allow her body to switch with me for a day. Amen!"

*poof* God, in His infinite wisdom, granted the man's wish.

The next morning, sure enough, the man awoke as a woman while his spouse fitted into his body.

He arose and made breakfast for his mate. After his mate left for work, he awakened the kids

He dressed them up with their school uniforms and fed them breakfast.

He even packed their lunch and drove them to school.

Then he came home and sent some clothes for dry cleaning before dropping by the bank to make a deposit.

Afterwards, he went shopping for groceries.

Then he drove home to put away the groceries.

He settled the bills and balanced the cheque book.

He cleaned the cat's litterbox and bathed the dog.

Then, it was already one o'clock in the afternoon.

And he hurried to make the beds....

...do the laundry...

... vacuum, dust, sweep and mop the kitched floor.

At 2:30pm, he made his way to the school to pick up the kids and got into an argument with them while on the way home. Later, he prepared milk and cookies for tea time...

...and got the kids organised to do their homework.

Then, he set up the ironing board and watched TV while ironing.

At 4:30pm, he began peeling potatoes and washing vegetables for salad.

He rolled meatballs and snapped fresh beans for dinner.

At 7:00pm, his mate returned from work and had dinner with him and the children.

After dinner, he cleaned the kitchen and ran the dishwasher.

He then folded laundry, bathed the kids and put them to sleep.

At 11:00pm, he was exhausted. And though his daily chores weren't finished, he went to bed where he was expected to make love with his mate, which he managed to get through without any complaints.

The next morning, he awoke and immediately knelt by the bed and said:

"Lord, I don't know what I was thinking. I was so wrong to envy my wife for being able to stay at home all day. Please, Oh! Oh! Please let us trade back. Amen!"

The Lord, in His infinite wisdom, replied:

"My son, I feel that you have learnt your lesson and I will be happy to change things back to the way they were. But you'll have to wait NINE MONTHS though. You got pregnant last night."

Moral of the story

Do not ever underestimate women in any circumstances.

EL Pre-Graduation Photoshoot

2011-03-03T12:50:00.002+08:00

My fellow lovely classmates (clad in traditional attire) in their pre-graduation photoshoot. But where is me?

U would be wondering where am I. Well, speaking the truth, I am supposed to be with them but sadly, I'm not. The reason is because I've taken a break from my studies last year due to some personal reasons. I really wish that I could be with them and graduate together with them but my wish ain't gonna happen as I've just resumed my studies in Y3S1 while they're in the final semester (and they'll be handing in their hard-bound and comb-bound project soon).

Anyway, it's indeed my pleasure to accompany them along the journey from the very first semester in May 2008 until now. We have great time studying and having fellowship together. It is indeed a great honour to be in this wonderful and wacky EL group. Through thick and thin, we managed to overcome challenges and obstacles we face during our pursuit of a degree in English Language.

Thank you, Eugene & the 28 lovely girls! Meeting all 29 of u is indeed a blessing for myself as u all have different personalities of your own. Although we'll parting our separate ways after this semester, let's not forget our friendships with one another after graduation, even though I won't be graduating with u all.

I sincerely wish all 29 of u a happy graduation after this semester and all the best in all your future endeavours. Let's hope that we'll be able to meet up (and have gatherings if possible) again in the future. U're all about to finish this chapter of life and getting ready to move into another chapter of your lives. Hope u all have a bright future ahead & may God bless each and everyone of u! And Happy Graduation!

As for myself, if everything goes smoothly, I'll be graduating together with Daryl's batch in March 2012 (i.e one semester later than Eugene's group who will be having their convocation in August 2011). All I need to do now is to concentrate on my current semester and think about graduation (cos my turn will come) and career later. And for now, I'll be focusing on all my assignments this semester and also my FYP (which I've submitted my proposal few days ago).

ELS Impromptu Speech Contest

2011-02-23T21:53:00.024+08:00

This afternoon, I return to varsity again (after having attended Online Journalism lectures in the morning) to take part in the Impromptu Speech Contest organised by the English Langauge Society. After having lunch, I head to the venue where the event is held (A003) and get myself registered for the contest. I go into the auditorium and find myself a seat and wait for the event to commence.

The MCs for the event is Calvin and Natalie (both my juniors) and they welcome and thank everyone for attending. First they pass the time over to current ELS president Puey Ru for her welcoming speech. In her speech, Puey Ru explains about the rules and regulations of the contest: Each participant is given 3 minutes to prepare his/her speech after selecting a topic and another 3 minutes to speak. A bell will be sounded once at 2 minutes and a green card will be shown. Participants have to try concluding their speeches within the next 1 minute. And at 3 minutes, the bell will be rung twice and a red card will be shown, meaning the participant has to stop wherever he/she is.

After Puey Ru ends her speech, the MCs take over and invite Mr Krishnan to deliver his welcoming speech. Mr Krishnan appreciate eveyone's attendance and wishes the participants all the best in the speech contest. Okay, the contest officially opens the first round with the 1st contestant (Raymond Ong) stepping up to the front and speak on his chosen topic for 3 minutes. While he's speaking, the 2nd contestant is doing the preparation at the same time. (This is to save time so that the event won't be dragged for longer hours.) The same goes for the following participants until the end of the contest. The judges for this round are Mr Krishnan, Mr Renu and Mr Paul.

While waiting for my turn, I listen to other contestants' speeches. There are quite a number of interesting topics as far as I can notice. One of them is The Most Interesting Movie I've Watched In My Life, where Roy Ong mentions about the trilogy of The Chronicles of Narnia. The extraordinary effects found in the movies really amazes him and he states that these things cannot be seen in real life. I agree with what he said because I love the Narnia movies too. Another topic is My Favourite Malaysian Food and Boo Lim (my EL junior) confesses his love for sambal belacan on two simple reasons: spicy and cheap. There's another one which goes The Most Embarrassing Moment In My Life and Chiam Chin Heng mentions about his embarrassing moments.

Well, as for myself, I'm 11th in line. When 10th contestant (Sanjay) is speaking about A Leader I Admire The Most, it is my turn to prepare my speech on my chosen topic. And guess what, I am dumbfounded after receiving the topic The Most Embarrassing Moment In My Life (the same one as Chiam's). Oh my goodness! What am I gonna talk about? I have no idea at all of what to say. Anyway, I gotta try my best since I'm in the contest and don't want to embarrass myself there.

And finally I manage to think of something to mention and after Sanjay finishes on the leader which he admired the most - the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, it's my turn and I calmly take my place to begin my speech. I define the most embarrassing moment in my life was when I fell in love with the wrong girl during form 6. This girl, Nicole, is one of my classmates while I was doing my form 6 in my alma mater SMJK Sam Tet Ipoh. She has a sweet and charming look which has captured my attention. Beside that, Nicole is a brilliant and lovely girl and she seldom get angry without any valid reasons. So I attempted to pursue after her and try winning her heart. In my heart, she appears to be the right girl but apparently she's not and cannot be because of two simple reasons: height and religion. First, Nicole is kinda short while I'm quite tall. There's a distinctive difference of height btwn hers and mine. When we're together, we look more of brother and sister rather than a dating couple. Second, our religions do not click at all. Mine is Christianity whereas she's a Buddhist. As a Christian, I truly believe in holy matrimony. And to fulfill this matrimony, I should get a Christian girl as a spouse. But Nicole's not one, therefore she is not suitable for me. I realised about this and decided not to carry on my pursuit since I knew this is not gonna work. Nicole knew that I liked her. She didn't reject me but neither did she accept my love for her. We remain as friends until present and still keep in touch with each other. I'm not sure if this embarrassed me or not, but the fact that my fellow classmates and friends knew about our love affair really embarrassed me a lot. Then, I rest my case and return to take my seat.

After myself, the remaining contestants go out one by out to deliver their speeches based on the topics they're randomly pick. But some topics are repetitive ones, with the ones describing certain moments in life (The Most Memorable / Embarrassing / Unforgettable Moment In My Life) being repeated at least 10 times. Perhaps the organising committee has ran out of topics and had to use the same ones for a few times. The first round comes to an end after the last speech by contestant Victoria Akiew of English Education course with her title My Favourite Malaysian Artist in which she mentions that local artist Nicholas Teo was her neighbour back in Sarawak.

Time for a short break. All the people adjourn outside the auditorium to have some light refreshment prepared by the committee. During this time, it's time for fellowship where everyone mingle around with one another. Then comes along the Dean of FAS Dr Sebastian K Francis. He is here to witness the flow of the whole contest. Later, everyone's back in the auditorium for the second round of the speech contest. And this time, the panel of judges are Mr Lim, Mr Lionel and one female Malay lecturers.

There are only a few contestants this time (6 to be exact). This time, more interesting topics appear like The Most Interesting Book I've Read, Why We Should Celebrate Teacher's Day and My First Day In Utar. Of course, two topics from the previous round - The Most Embarrassing Moment In My Life and A Leader I Admire The Most - pop out again. Leon James Gautier takes the topic The Most Interesting Book I've Read and guess what, his is the Bible. He informed the audience how he finds the Holy Word of God useful to him. Oh boy! I should read the Bible more often after listening to his explanation. Edward Chin (former SRC president) gets the same topic as mine and speak on several things which he feels embarrassed. Perhaps he got influenced when I revealed my topic when speaking to the Dean during the break. Ming Hen is the one who explains his first day in Utar while Sangeeta Kaur provide her reasons on why we should celebrate Teacher's Day. She even wonders if there's also Lecturer's Day. Good one, Sangeeta!

Hew Wee Ling is the very last contestant and she chooses the topic on the leader she admired the most. The person whom she admire the most is not any other leaders around the world but Yao Jia, her course rep. She explains how Yao Jia takes up the responsibility and carry out her duties well. At first, other coursemates of hers thought she's willing to be their course rep because of her name. But Yao Jia steps up to shoulder the burden of a course rep. Anyway, Yao Jia has been doing her duties well and Wee Ling praises her for all her efforts. I wish that Yao Jia was here, so that she can listen to her fellow coursemate's complements of her excellent service.

The contest is over after Wee Ling concludes her speech. While waiting for the judges to finalise their results, the MCs keep the audience entertained. And members of the floor suggest that both MCs Calvin and Natalie should do the impromptu speech too. Calvin agrees and he chooses a topic. The one he picks is My Favourite International Artist in which he has no idea at all of what to say. So he chooses another one, which is the one that I've spoken earlier. Calvin confesses that one of his most embarrassing moment was being kissed by a guy on his cheek. Later, upon request from the audience, he reveals his girlfriend's identity (which is Clara) and Clara is being asked what's Calvin's most embarrassing moment in her point of view. After this, Dr Sebastian is invited to give his speech and he mentions that he also experienced what Calvin has confessed but the only thing different is that Dr Sebastian was kissed on his lips.

Then, it's the moment that everyone's been waiting for: announcement of results. Mr Krishnan is invited to announce the results while Dr Sebastian is supposed to give away the prizes. Mr Krishnan reveals that some participants did well and the judges had a tough time to decide the winners. The 2nd runner-up goes to Sangeeta Kaur. I predicted her to be in the top 3 beforehand as I really impressed with her performance. Sangeeta isn't around and one of her friends receive a certificate and cash prize RM50 on her behalf. The 1st contestant, Raymond Ong, takes 2nd place and walks away with a certificate and RM100. And now, the winner of the speech contest is about to be unveiled and the crown goes to.... *drums roll* Victoria Akiew!!! Victoria is totally surprised that she has won the contest and believes that someone else deserves it better than her. Anyway, she receives her prizes (a certificate and RM200 cash prize) from the Dean and expresses her gratitude to her fellow coursemates for bugging her to enter this competition. The rest of the participants don't walk home empty-handed. Each of them receive a certificate of participation (which is printed on-the-spot). Mr Krishnan thanks everyone for attending the event and tells all the contestants that they're all winners as they have the courage to speak in front of public.

My brand new achievement

The certificate that I received in recognition of my participation in the Impromptu Speech Contest

Then, everyone is dismissed and return home while the committee members stay back for an exco meeting. But some people cannot leave for home yet due to heavy downpour and I'm one of them. While waiting for the rain to get smaller, I chat with some of the people who are still there. I leave the campus for dinner at around 7pm when the rain isn't heavy anymore. I even get the cert laminated to avoid the ink from getting smeared 'cause as I mentioned earlier, the certs are printed on the spot.

I am really proud of my new achievement as this demonstrates that I can overcome my stage fright. And this will definitely boost my confidence in public speaking. Of course, the reason that I was able to speak well is because previously I've been attending Toastmasters meetings at YMCA Ipoh during my long absence from campus. That's all the story I wanna tell this time. Signing off.

CF Sports Day

2011-02-23T12:49:00.011+08:00

Yesterday night, the CF had its sports day again. And the only sport available was none other than.... CAPTAIN'S BALL!! Well overall, it was indeed a great night. Around 80 people turned up for this event.

Everyone gathered at the Utar sports complex for this exciting event. When they arrived, what they need to do was to register themselves at the counter in which Carlie Yong was in-charge. After registration, they gathered into their respective groups. There were 8 teams in total. And Derk gave the participants a short briefing about how the game is played. He demonstrated the things that can and cannot be done during a game. Later, he requested each group to come up with a group name and a group cheer and also to discuss about strategies.

While all the teams were having discussions, the committee members requested that each group to send one representative to draw lots for the competition. Oh, forgot to mention that the competition was done in knockout format, meaning if one team wins, that team advances to the next round. But of course, the losers will play against each other to determine their placings. After lots have been drawn, it's time to begin the competition. And all the teams headed to their respective courts, ready to kickstart the game.

And here are the fixtures for the first round: Red Idea vs Gaya, Purple Dinosaur vs Mashmellow, The Sexy Cobra vs Pinky Rangers and Brownies vs All Girls. All 4 games were played simultaneously and winners advanced to the semi-finals while losers advanced to 5th-8th placings. (Oh yeah, I'm in The Sexy Cobra team under captain Ah Pau). And the 4 teams which have the name of their respective colours stayed in the contention for the title. In other words, Gaya, Mashmellow, The Sexy Cobra & All Girls lost to their respective opponents and had to fight for 5th to 8th place.

The second game resumed after a 5-minute break. And here are the fixtures for semi-finals (for both the title and 5th placing): Red Idea vs Purple Dinosaur, Pinky Rangers vs Brownies, Gaya vs Mashmellow and The Sexy Cobra vs All Girls. The Sexy Cobra unleashed their deadly bites on All Girls and edged them 10-8 to face Mashmellow (who defeated Gaya) for a fight for 5th place. Now let's focus on the competition proper, the two teams that made it into the final were Purple Dinosaur and Pinky Rangers, leaving semi-finalists Red Idea and Brownies to determine 3rd place among themselves.

And the final round took place after another 5-minute break. The fixtures of the final round are as follows:
7th-8th placing: Gaya vs All Girls
5th-6th placing: Mashmellow vs The Sexy Cobra
3rd-4th placing: Red Idea vs Brownies
Final: Purple Dinosaur vs Pinky Rangers

And here are the results:
Gaya showed All Girls that they have gaya to overcome them 15-6 to take 7th place.
Mashmellow were proved too strong for The Sexy Cobra to handle and won 9-3 to finish 5th.
Red Idea managed to outwit Brownies 18-9 for 3rd place.
Pinky Rangers had the power to subdue Purple Dinosaur and emerged as the new champions.

Everyone were summoned to gather around Court A (in which the final took place) and witnessed the prize-giving ceremony. Several prizes were awarded to the new champs Pinky Rangers, which included a trophy, a comb of bananas and a packet of chocolate wafers. Derk asked everyone if want to have another game, since it was still early, and everyone agreed. This time, all 8 groups were to send representatives to compete with the organising committee. The game started and it was indeed an exciting match to watch. But the non-committtee team was too quick for the committee to handle, winning the game 8-2.

While the match was going on, those who were not playing either watched the game or indulged in fellowships with one another. After the match, Pastor Nicky Ling closed with a word of prayer and there were photo-taking sessions for all the participating teams. Later, everyone dismissed and returned to their respective homes. Check this link for the photos of this event: CF Sports Day 2011

Phew! I returned home tired but happy 'cause I really enjoyed the night. I have learnt how to play captain's ball and would be itching to play more of it. I'm satisfied with my performance and also the co-operation I gave to my fellow teammates. For the first game against the eventual champs Pinky Rangers, I swapped with my teammates and managed to play in every position, but for the next two games, I was confined to defence as I was tall enough to block any shots which indeed I did twice in the last game. Anyway, I'm fine in any position as long as I'm a team player. It was indeed a wonderful night just as I have predicted 'cause I always sing Black Eyes Peas' I Gotta Feeling (that tonight's gonna be a good night) whenever there's an event happening at night.

CF's taking a break next week to allow members to have more time on their academic stuff (assignments, tests, midterms, presentations etc) and will be back the following week with respective CG outings.

Boundaries

2011-02-17T23:30:00.006+08:00

Inevtiably, boundaries exist in our life and we have to live by them. We are bounded in everything in our lives, from young until old. Ever since we were born, we were first bounded to our own baby cots and play pens. As we grow older, new sets of boundaries appear and we have to abide in them. There are certain things that we can and cannot do as we live our lives on this earth. Having boundaries means that there are limitations in our lives and we should not cross over those boundaries at all times.

Some people may think that boundaries are not good to them. But wait, look at the bright side. It actually helps a lot in living your life. We have to know our boundaries so that we know where we are going. Of course, first we need to set our own boundaries and live within them. Sometimes we may tend to step out of those boundaries as we feel uneasy about their existence. But it's best that we stick to those boundaries so that our lives won't go haywire.

If we have ever cross over boundaries, what we can do is that we can repair those boundaries that we have trampled over. Although boundaries slow down our progress in life, at least we can do things one step at a time and achieve our goals or reach our destinations one day, rather than getting what we want without even realising our boundaries. One very good example from the Bible was Samson. He has a good future lying ahead of him, but it was all destroyed because he has crossed over his boundaries by wanting to have Delilah, a Philistine, as his wife. In the end, he paid the price with his life after he told Delilah the secret of his strength and the Philistines captured him after Delilah shaved his head bald.

Thanks Pastor Ryan for sharing this message.

Because You Loved Me

2011-02-14T00:16:00.009+08:00

For Valentine's Day this year, I would like to dedicate this song sung by Canadian songbird Celine Dion to the Lord. Heavenly Father, thank You for showering me with Your love throughout my life. I just want to confess that You're my greatest love in this world that nothing else could replace. Even though this year I do not have a girlfriend yet to celebrate this special day with, but spending my day alone with You is sufficent enough for me. But I still believe that I would be able to find my true love one day - the right girl that You've chosen to be my life partner. And once I've found my Miss Right, I would treasure our relationship as much as I do with that of mine with Yours, Lord. Above all things, Your love is what I value the most. Thank You Lord for Your unfailing love upon me. Therefore, I dedicate this song Because You Loved Me to You Lord.

Verse 1
For all those time You stood by me
For all the truth that You made me see
For all the joy You brought to my life
For all the wrong that You made right
For every dream You made come true
For all the love I found in You
I'll be forever thankful baby
You're the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You're the one who saw me through
Through it all

Chorus
You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'cause You believe
I'm everything I am
Because You loved me

Verse 2
You gave me wings and made me fly
You touched my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith, You gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach
You stood by me and I stood tall
I had Your love, I had it all
I'm grateful for each day You gave me
Maybe I don't know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because I was loved by You

Bridge
You are always there for me
The tender wind that carried me
A light in the dark shining Your love into my life
You've been my inspiration
Through the lies You were the truth
My world is a better place because of You

I'm everything I am
Because You loved me

Chip-Wrecked Movie Poster Released

2011-02-12T15:09:00.008+08:00

Oh boy!! The 3rd Alvin and the Chipmunks movie will be released on Dec 16, 2011 and recently the movie poster (above) has been just released online. I'm really excited and looking forward to watch the movie. The Chipmunks and Chipettes are back in action: this time they're going on a vacation aboard a luxury cruise ship. As the title Chip-wrecked suggested, Alvin, Simon, Theodore, Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor together with their caretaker Dave Seville go on a voyage. The 6 chipmunks "are up to their antics again, turning the ship into their personal playground, until they get 'chipwrecked' on a desert island". And the Munks and Chipettes are in for a surprise when they embark on an island adventure with their new friend - a castaway who's more than a match than Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Having watch Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), I'm really eager to find out Chipmunks and Chipettes' first adventure together after Dave agreed to let the girls to stay together with his boys at the end of The Squeakquel.

Hillsong United - The Time Has Come

2011-02-11T15:36:00.003+08:00

Found love beyond all reason
You gave Your life Your all for me
And called me Yours forever
Caught in the mercy fallout
I found hope found life
Found all I need
You're all I need

Pre-Chorus
The time has come
To stand for all we believe in
So I for one am gonna
Give my praise to You

Chorus
Today, today it's all or nothing
All the way the praise goes out to You
Yeah all the praise goes out to You
Today, today I live for one thing
To give You praise
In everything I do
Yeah all the praise goes out to You

Bridge
All we are is Yours
And all we're living
Is all You are
Is all that You are

CNY Crash-of-Ipoh-Houses 2011

2011-02-07T15:08:00.014+08:00

5th February 2011

On the 3rd day of Lunar New Year, a special event called crash-of-Ipoh-houses was organised whereby houses of CF members who are from Ipoh would be visited.

Chang En, as the organiser, has contacted several CF members a few days earlier via Facebook, asking whether their houses would be open to be crashed. A total of 8 members have offered their houses for visitation, namely Gin, Wendy, Esther, Shiao Wenn, Clara, Jensen, myself and Chuah En himself. Later, Chang En gathered all the addresses of the houses and decided on the sequences. But Gin withdrew from the pack as he thought that visitation would be done in the morning, leaving 7 homes available left.

On the proper day, I decided to join in the crash and headed to the location Chang En asked me to wait for him. My brother sent me there and left after I met up with Chang En. Chang En said there were still some people who haven't arrived yet. We can only start our journey when everyone else has arrived, meaning David, Kharis and Kelvin Wong were nowhere to be seen.

Just then, Jensen appeared with 4 international students, three from Sudan and one from Palestine, that we've met the week before the CNY break. They have decided to join us to learn more about the Chinese culture after we invited them along. Then we decided to wait at the Hillcity hotel lobby for David and Kharis who were on their way from Batu Gajah. But the two of them got stuck, while Kelvin caught in a very heavy traffic jam in Penang. We had no choice but to proceed with our visitation and our first destination: Wendy Lee's house.

Chang En's father drove his son, Clara and me in one car while Jensen and the 4 in another. Using GPRS on his phone, Chang En managed to locate Wendy's house and off we go into her house. The bubbly girl and her mother welcomed their guests and had fellowship with all of them. During our conversation, Jensen began telling stories about Chinese New Year to our international friends while we listened. Wendy's mother gave all of us ang pows as a blessing before we left for our next destination.

As we were getting ready to go to the next house which is Chang En's, Wendy asked her mother's permission to use the family car to ferry Chang En, Clara and myself for the rest of the journey as Chang En's father has returned to his house, preparing to welcome us. This time, David and Kharis finally got out of Batu Gajah and joined us. We arrived at Chang En's residence shortly and we sang Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Ni Ya (the song was being recorded in Jensen's camera) before stepping into the house.

While in Chang En's house, as we're introducing ourselves, Chang En's mother recognised me as her neighbour in FrontierVille (she was the one who added me as a friend on Facebook). And we had fun chit-chatting while munching on cookies. And Jensen began his story-telling again, this time explainng about the Nian monster and lion dance. Aunty Chuah gave each of us a packet of ang pow before we cabut to the next house in line.

The house we're visiting was Clara's house. And while on the way, Diming called Wendy and said he's joining us. So we waited for his arrival at Church of Praise. Soon he appeared and we're on our way to Clara's house which is situated deep inside Taman Song Choon. That housing area was quite familiar to me as Madam Wong, a friend of my mother's, brought us through that area a few weeks back. We reached Clara's house and discovered she lived in a 3-storey house. The usual things happened: fellowship and Jensen's story time followed by distribution of ang pows and photo-taking session. Then, off we go again and headed to the next house.

According to the sequence decided earlier, it should be Shiao Wenn's house after Clara's, followed by Esther's, mine and lastly Jensen's. But Shiao Wenn couldn't make it while Esther had dinner date with her parents. That means my house is up next (YAY!!). While we're on our way out, we noticed Jensen's car was nowhere to be seen. We waited for a while but still can't see him. Apparently, he headed in the wrong direction. Never mind, it's getting late, we've to move on.

I directed Wendy to my own house and we experienced traffic jam while on the traffic light junctions at Jusco. Fortunately, we managed to spot Jensen's Proton Saga again. We entered the highway to get to my house but the other cars driven by Jensen, Diming and David were not behind Wendy's MyVi. After exiting the highway, Wendy decided to stop at Mobil and tried calling them. And it seemed that all 3 cars have lost their way but Diming was on the right track coming to Jalan Kuala Kangsar. So Wendy directed them to wait at Tesco Extra while she, Chang En, Clara and myself headed into Gunung Lang for a visitation to my house.

My parents and brother were preparing to go out for dinner when we arrived. But they stayed back for a while to entertain the 4 of us. Later my mother left shortly after that as she was supposed to bring dinner to my grandmother who was staying in the house belonged to my uncle whose family was currently having a vacation in Korea. After having a chat with my family, Wendy, Clara, Chang En and myself left my house to reunite with the rest of the troop at Tesco Extra.

We managed to reach Tesco Extra safely despite the traffic jam. And when we were there, Kelvin Wong was already there. He finally managed to overcome the jam after 5 hours and join us. 2 more cars came and it turned out to be Jensen's and Kao Meng's (David was the driver). All of us agreed to have dinner at KFC inside Jusco. The reason was that our international friends were Muslims and they communicated with one another in Arabic. Actually, we have one more house to visit i.e Jensen's, but his parents went out and won't be coming back any time sooner. We had no choice but to skip his house and end our visitation journey earlier, and this means my house was the last stop of the whole CNY house-crash.

We had an enjoyable time having our dinner and chat-chitted with one another. Then, it's time to make a move. Everyone parted their ways and went home. As for myself, I've decided to stay overnight at my uncle's place since it's quite near to Jusco. Jensen was the one who sent me there as Wendy has to send Chang En back to his own home.

Whoa!! It was indeed a memorable day for myself as I enjoyed the whole outing. Thank God for His journey mercy upon all the drivers involved. Of course, I would like to express my gratitude to Wendy Lee for her excellent and steady driving skills along the way. Thanks, Wendy!

These are the 4 people who made it through the CNY house-crash by visiting all the 4 housesduring the whole outing. Coincidentally,they themselves were the hosts. From left: Wendy Lee, Alexson Chuah, Clara Tan and Anthony Chan (yours truly)

All the 4 houses share one thing in common: they're all corner lots. Wendy's and mine are at the centre while Alexson's & Clara's at the side of respective rows of houses. All but Wendy's have compound around their houses. Another thing is that in the above picture, we were seated in accordance to the houses we visited, meaning from Wendy's to Alexson's to Clara's to mine. And we have a copy of Google map with us before the outing began. Four addresses were printed on it and the 4 addresses lead to our respective homes. Isn't that wonderful?

And lastly, here's the distribution of those who participated in the whole outing and the percentage of the homes they visited (out of 4):

4 (100%) = Wendy, Clara, Alexson, yours truly

3 (75%) = Jensen and the 4 international friends

2 (50%) = David, Kharis

1 (25%) = Diming

None (0%) = Kelvin Wong

~~~THE END~~~

The Rabbit HOPS In!!

2011-02-04T16:39:00.009+08:00

Yup!! That's right!! The Year of the Rabbit is finally here!! Yay!!

I'm really excited about the Rabbit Year as I was born in 1987, which is the Year of the Fire Rabbit. And this year is the Year of the Golden Rabbit. I do hope that this year would be an awesome year for myself and everything's going well for me. I had reunion lunch with my relatives two days ago and it's good for my relatives to gather and have fellowship with one another.

As usual, ang pows (red packets of money) will be distributed esp to children where this is the moment they're excited about. Not only to children, ang pows can be given to senior citizens as well, as a blessing. During this festive season, visitation is a tradition for the Chinese community and usually families would visit their relatives and friends. During CNY, the most common types of food are mandarin oranges and variety kinds of cookies. Of course, these can be used as gifts to other families and friends. Speaking about traditions, one practice is that NO floor-sweeping is allowed during the 1st day of the Lunar New Year as the Chinese believe that it will sweep away the prosperity.

Alright, back to my side of the story. This Saturday (tomorrow), my Kampar friends is having a CNY crash-of-the-Ipoh-houses. And my house will be one of 7 "lucky" ones to be visited. This event was planned by some of my fellow CF members. I'm extremely excited about tomorrow and hopefully this event will be an enjoyable one. On the same day, my former 6th Form classmates are having a Gathering as well but unfortunately I won't be joining them this time. Have fun, my fellow F3 members!

Last but not least, I sincerely wish all my readers a Chinese New Year! May the Year of the Rabbit brings joy, cheer and happiness to each and everyone of you! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Whoa!! A Busy Day Indeed!!

2011-01-26T17:50:00.011+08:00

25 Jan 2011

Yes, it was totally a busy day for me as I spent most of my time inside the canpus. I went to Utar as early as 9.45am and only returned home around 12 something the next day (today). Wanna know what I did throughout the whole day? This is my story:

I woke up around 9am and had my breakfast before heading to the varsity. At first, I thought I was supposed to have directed study with Ms Joanna but unsure about the time whether is from 10am-12pm or 12pm-2pm. So I waited for her near her office. After half an hour her shadow still couldn't be seen, I texted her asking for the correct time. She replied saying it's 12pm-2pm. After received her reply, I headed to Block C Cafeteria.

While at the cafeteria, I went to help out with the fundraising the CF is currently having, selling apple pies and muffins of assorted flavours (blueberry, chocolate and strawberry) to raise fund for the upcoming CF camp in May.After having lunch there, I returned to Block A again and found Ms Joanna was in her room. We began the directed study and Ms Joanna wasn't sure how to conduct a directed study as this is the first time she's doing this. Anyway, I brought along the notes and we started working from there. As this was the first session, she requested me to read the chapter on the Indo-European family of languages and do a summary on it. She allowed me to go to the library to do the summary and hand in before 2pm if possible.

I headed to Block G after leaving her room. And I spent an hour there trying to complete the task but I couldn't. So I texted Ms Joanna, asking if I could hand in by tomorrow (today), and she agreed. After packing my stuff, I left the library and headed back to Block C Cafeteria. There, I dropped by the CF booth again and occasionally the ELS booth. ELS is having fundraising too, selling cupcakes for three days from 24 -26 Jan. There, I got to know more of my EL juniors, Puey Ru (chairperson), Esther Song and Natalie to name a few.

Around 4pm, once again, it's back to Block A again. This time I'm seeing Mr Soh for another session of directed study on Language Learning Theories. He and I discussed about whether I wanted to retain my previous coursework marks. And he suggested that I should retain it as my coursework marks was quite satisfactory. He explained that it would be burdensome for me if I were to redo my coursework. The only thing I need to work on was on the midterm exam where I faired extremely poor. Then Mr Soh asked me to read chapter one and ask him if there's any questions. Then, Nelson Kuah appeared at Mr Soh's office and Mr Soh was quite mad why he came late. Nelson explained that he encountered some problems in the DSA. Anyway Mr Soh told Nelson what he had already told me. We dismissed after that and Nelson and I parted ways.

Then, I headed in the direction of the Dry Cafeteria located btwn Block D and E. I decided to continue doing my summary and spent an hour there before going back to Block C once again to meet up with Kao Meng as he has summoned me to help out with the final preparation of the Welcoming Night. There were namy tasks to be completed but we settled one task at a time. Later more and more helpers turned up and they too started helping out. By 7pm, everyone was in their respective positions (after having dinner of course). I was in the ushering team together with a few CF members, Melody Leong, Cheng Hoi, Guang Yao, Wendy Lee just to name a few. Our duties was to welcome those who came for the event and guide them to registration counters. Church representatives and new members will receive a bookmark each upon registration.

Kao Meng summoned everyone to gather into 10 groups according to the number on bookmarks they had (CF members exclusive, they can just join whichever group they want). So I just simply chose and joined Tabitha's. (This was the 2nd time I'm in her group, having been in her group for welcoming prayer walk last week.) Kao Meng then introduced two games. First, one person has to say his/her name, the next person has to repeat the 1st person's name followed by his/her name, and so on. All the groups did this simaltanously, with whomever was slow or say wrongly a person's name would receive punishment from the game master. Each group would have one representative for punishment time. And I'm the 'lucky one' as I couldn't remember one of the girls' name.

The 10 people waiting for Kao Meng's further instructions. And I'm the 3rd person from the left.

The second game followed after this. This time around, all the 10 groups had to name themselves according to names of fruits, namely Mango, Apple, Orange, Durian, Mangosteen, Kiwi, Pineapple, Strawberry, Dragon Fruit and Avocado. What they needed to do was to bomb one another with the lines stating own group name and the targeted group's name (e.g "Mango bomb! Mango bomb! Mango bomb to Apple bomb!!"). Whinchever group made a mistake will be forfeited. In the end, Pineapple and Dragon Fruit were the joint losers and the group members were punished by writing UtarCF with their BUTTS!!

Okay playtime over. Let's get into business! Everyone headed into DDK3 and prepared themselves for a time of worship. Daniel Chi was the worship leader and musicians included Christopher, David and Wai Wai with Edmund controlling the slides. 3 songs were sung bilingually, namely How Great Is Our God, Lord I Lift Your Name On High and Beautiful Saviour. Later, emcees for the night, Mr Kuek and interpreter Chang En, welcomed everyone. Then they handed over the time to the CF choir. The choir consisted of 4 brothers and 4 sisters and they belted out several songs including I Will Follow Him and We Are The World.

After that, it's Pastor Nicky Ling's turn for his sermon and Chang En was the interpreter. In his sermon entitled Overcomer, he compared between life in schools and life in universities. At the end of his sermon, Pastor Nicky prayed for all who present before handing the time back to Mr K and Chang En. Then, everyone adjourned for light refreshments where this was the time that fellowship took place. There were several booths around the area where refreshment was served and freshies could find out more about various churches around Kampar. Soon, everyone started leaving for home and I'm no exception of course, having spending the entire day at the campus. And I arrived back in my own room at around 12.30am.

Yeah, that's all I wanna share. It was a great day indeed although I was tired. Oh ya, I didn't manage to snap any photos for the Welcoming Night. Do check out the following link for photos of this wonderful event: CF Welcoming Night Jan 2011

FusionExcel Recognition Dinner 2011

2011-01-23T23:00:00.006+08:00

Miss World 2010 graced FusionExcel recognition dinner

Alexandria Mills launched Miss World Malaysia 2011 pageant

By ANTHONY CHAN

The poster says it all: A large poster on the stage displaying the event of the day which Mills is the guest-of-honour. On the stage was Gamul (left).

SERDANG: It was a dream comes true that a reigning Miss World visited our lovely country. And for the first time in 23 years, all the top three winners of Miss World 2010 pageant came to visit Malaysia. This time around, Miss World 2010 Alexandria Mills of USA was here on official business.

Mills, 18, was seen appearing at the FusionExcel International recognition dinner held at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS) in MARDI located here on January 23, 2011. She was here to launch the Miss World Malaysia 2011 pageant during the recognition dinner which is held once every six weeks. This time, there were a total of 200 tables in the multi-purpose hall, filled with invited guests and representatives from several countries such as Singapore, China, Thailand, India, Taiwan and the Philippines.

The event of the night began with the arrival of several VIPs which included Mills, President of the Miss World Organisation Mrs Julia Morley; 1st runner-up of Miss World 2010 Emma Wareus of Botswana, 19; Miss World Malaysia 2010 Nadia Heng Min Dern, 25; Miss World India 2010 Manasvi Mamgai, 22; founder CEO of FusionExcel International Mr Paul Ting, who is the franchise holder of Miss World Malaysia 2011 pageant; founder director of FusionExcel International Mr K.S. Lee; veteran singer Dato' Khadijah Ibrahim and ambassador of FusionExcel International's Hope for Children campaign Maggie Loo.

Star attraction of the night: (from left) Morley (partly hidden), Mills, Emma and Nadia

Then, the masters of ceremonies invited the VIPs to be up on stage for the official launch of the Miss World Malaysia 2011 pageant. After that, the dinner officially began with a long stream of young waiters and waitresses serving dishes to all the guests.

There were performances on the stage to keep the guests entertained while they were enjoying the dishes served on their tables. There were several dance performances by Sichuan district Guangzhou dance troop from China, which included a ballet dance. The Chinese dancers impressed the audience with their excellent dance moves.

Then, Dato' Khadijah stepped into spotlight when she was performing a traditional song on the stage. She is one of the appointed judges for the Miss World Malaysia 2011 pageant.

The next performance was thrilling as a young boy from the Philippines led the VIPs, who were invited to join him on the stage, for a song presentation. Clark Gamul acknowledged the distinguished guests before he started to sing Michael Jackson's We Are The World and the VIPs joined him. After his performance, Gamul received a birthday gift from K.S. Lee. Coincidentally, he turns 11 on the auspicious day itself and obtained a laptop. Gamul expressed his gratitude by saying, "I would like to thank FusionExcel for the gift I received. I really appreciate it."

Later, former Miss Malaysia Maggie Loo delivered her speech on the Hope for Children campaign developed by FusionExcel International.

Another significant event was the donation of one million sewing machines to one million Indian households. Representatives from India, including Mamgai and FusionExcel presidential director Rachel Thomas, made their way to the stage and revealed a mock sewing machine which was presented to them. They also received a mock cheque of RM150,000. The Indian community was rejoiced of the honour that they have received.

A time for celebration: The Indian representatives rejoicing after receiving the mock cheque and mock sewing machine. With them is Mamgai (first from left).

Last but not least, the highlight event of that night was recognition of directors, executive directors and presidential directors of FusionExcel International. Names were being called and those whose names were mentioned went up the stage to receive their rewards as recognition for their achievement in the organisation.

Of course, some of the participants were lucky enough to walk away with small gifts. Out of the large number of guests, only 100 were fortunate ones whose ticket numbers were randomly chosen through a lucky draw. They followed the instructions given by the MCs and redeemed their prizes.

At the back of the hall, there were counters where visitors can look at the various products of FusionExcel International displayed there. They can purchase the products if they're interested. The products available there were Quantum Pendants, Premium Quantum Pendants, Quantum Shields and many others. There was even a special where buyers can choose their own designs on the Quantum Pendants and have them decorated on the spot.

Up for grabs: The various designs of Quantum Pendants avaiable on display.

NOTE This event is written in the form of a news story as a contribution to the OJ news website assignment. The news can be found in the news site entitled newsflashutar.

YES! I GOT IT!!

2011-01-21T12:25:00.005+08:00

Yes!! My application for Utar vehicle sticker is successful and when I checked the results thru the Utar portal, the status shows that it is SUCCESSFUL (First Ballot). Wow! It really surprises me. I obtained the vehicle sticker application by the FIRST BALLOT?!?! Anyway, I really thank Oh Chin Eng (SRC president) for the balloting process and more importantly, I would like to express my gratitude to God as I have prayed to Him the day before regarding this matter. God really answers my prayers and I'm really grateful that he's my Special One!
Now that my vehicle sticker online appilcation is successful, I have to submit my application to DSA and obtain that sticker allocated to me ASAP as the application period is from today onwards until Feb 11. Guess I'll get that done next week when I return to Kampar.

Another thing that happens today is that I received a phone call from Ms Joanna Tan. She knows that I'll be repeating 2 subjects and one of them is History of the EL. She takes over the subject after Mr Mahalingam resigned last year. She asks me whether I'm free from 12-2pm next Tuesday and I reply saying that I'm totally free on that day. So she informs me to bring all the notes for the subject and see her in her office. I guess Mr Krishnan has told her about my case. And I hope he'd assign another lecturer for me soon, for the subject Language Learning Theories soon (which I guess the lecturer would be none other than Mr Soh).

CF Welcoming Prayer Walk

2011-01-19T20:30:00.007+08:00

The CF is back again, kickstarting the Jan 2011 trimester with a prayer walk on its 1st meeting. Supposed, the 1st meeting should be on Thursday but as tomorrow is a public holiday (Thaipusam), the meeting is brought forward by one day.

Anyway, the prayer walk starts around 5pm. A lot of members, both existing and new, are gathering at the Dry Cafeteria btwn Block D and E. The meeting begins with a praise and worship session led by David. We sing 3 songs, namely We're Together Again (this song will be sung on the 1st CF meetings for welcoming everyone back in the campus), We Want To See Jesus Lifted High and Every Time I Pray.

After that, Prayer Coordinator Ray Leong gives us a briefing before dividing all of us into several groups. There will be station masters to brief the groups about the prayer items. I'm in the group led by Tabitha (my fellow CG member), together with Parathy, Felicia and Kharis. Tabitha (or fondly known as Tabby) guides us to Block F, G and I to pray for the 3 blocks. While we're in Block G, a new member is brought by Ray to join our group and he is my buddy Kai Jun.

Among the items we've prayed for during the walk are:

Block G (Library)

Pray for better security as students find their belongings missing
Pray for sufficient reference books and system upgrading
Pray for the experienced librarians for their commitment and services in the library

Block I (Lecture Halls)

Pray that teaching and learning processes can be carried out in conducive environment and also the lecture halls will be well maintained
Pray for the construction works (beside the block and I heard that it's gonna be students' hostels) and the workers' safety

Block F (Admin Block)

Pray that the staff at Division of Finance and Department of Scholarship and Examination would be friendly and offer their best service
Pray for Christian lecturers that they would find time to get closer to God despite their busyness
Pray for UTAR President (Dr Chuah) and Vice-President (Dr Teh and 2 others)

After we're done, the 6 of us proceed back to our gathering place. While waiting the other groups to return, we take the opportunity for a short group sharing session and get to know one another. And when all the groups have returned, Ray asks if anyone wanna share their opinions and Derk shares his. He mentions that when his group is praying in Block A, another person joins in as well. And this person is Dr Sebastian, Dean of FAS. It doesn't surprise me as I have met the Dean before for my academc matters and Dr Sebastian mentions that he is also a Christian. Afterwards, Jensen says the closing prayer before everyone dismisses to go for dinner as the meeting finishes right on time at 7pm.

That's the end of the 1st meeting. Up next is the Freshies Welcoming Nite on Jan 25 (Tue). And I've offered my service to help out in this event in the area of ushering and setting up of booths plus refreshment. Looking forward to the exciting event. Oh ya, recruitment is still on this week(although tomorrow's off to give way to Thaipusam) and there will be fund-raising next week. CF will be baking tarts and muffins to raise funds for the upcoming CF camp.

With All I Am

2011-01-18T22:12:00.003+08:00

Verse 1
Into Your hand
I commit again
With all I am
for You Lord
You hold my world
in the palm of Your Hand
and I am Yours forever

Chorus
Jesus, I believe in You
Jesus, I belong to You
You're the reason that I live
the reason that I sing
With all I am

Verse 2
I'll walk with You
wherever You go
Through tears and joy
I'll trust in You
And l will live
in all of Your ways
and Your promises forever

Bridge
I will worship
I will worship You

Let The New Trimester Commences

2011-01-17T17:52:00.006+08:00

That's right!! Today is the very first day of the brand new trimester and I'm glad to be back in the midst of Utar environment again after the absence of 6 months (not a complete absence as I came back occasionally).

I cycle to Utar around 9.30am and proceed to class. When I enter the class, Samantha and Monica are already there and they give me a warm welcome back. Later, more and more of my friends turn up and they, too, are gald to see me again. Soon, everyone but Mei Yun and Bee Ling has arrived. We proceed to have our classes--Professional Writing lecture and tutorial with Ms Joginder and Online Journalism tutorial with Mr Teh Boon Teck. After the PW lecture, I go to Block C Cafeteria for lunch. There, I meet my fellow CF members and drop by the CF booth. The CF is having one-week recruitment drive at Block C and H.

After two consecutive tutorials from 12.30pm to 3.30pm, everyone dismisses. After that, I make my way to FAS FGO to see Cik Zuhairah in regards of the registration of the 2 repeat subjects but she is out for lunch. So I decided to walk around while waiting for her to return. Suddenly, I come across my new academic advisor's office. I decided to see him and introduce myself as one of his academic advisee. My new advisor is Mr Edwin Michael (previously I was under Mr Mahalingam, but then he resigned). After having a chat with Mr Edwin, I return to the FGO and Cik Zuhairah has returned. I talk to her regarding the registration matter and she will contact me for further actions as the HOD Mr Krishnan is not around. I thank her and head for home.

It's CGBC's Burger Nite tonight. Whoa... can't wait to make my own burgers again and have fellowship with my fellow Connectors.

Oh ya, I would like to wish my fellow coursemates, twins Ann and Jan, a happy 23rd birthday. It's nice knowing both girls and I hope they both have a wonderful day.

I Am Back

2011-01-16T17:08:00.007+08:00

"I AM BACK!!!" ~Ian Hawke (Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel, 2009)

Ah, I'm finally back in Kampar after a long absence and I'm geared up for the brand new trimester. For this trimester which begins tomorrow, I'll be joining back my original group - Eugene & Co. Supposed, I'm in Daryl's batch but most of them are away for their industrial training, except 6--Nelson, Brain, Dante, Jojo, Wei Yeng & Song Moi. The first 3 cannot have their internship done this trimester because of not enough credit hours, as for the 3 girls, they will be doing their internship in a kindergarten in Kampar.

Anyway, I'll be taking 4 subjects this trimester, namely Online Journalism, Professional Writing, History of the English Language (repeat) and Language Learning Theories (repeat). Registered for the first 2 subjects, but I need to register the latter two at the FGO. I'll get things done ASAP. Also, I have start working on my FYP proposal. Haven't thought of a suitable topic yet but I have chosen which area to concentrate--Psycholinguistics. Will refer to Mr Renu regarding this.

It's good to be back in the midst of my 3 families in Kampar--UtarCF, Campus Connect and EL. Looking forward for fellowship this trimester. There'll be Burger Nite at CGBC tomorrow evening. Pray that tomorrow will be a fine day. CF will be back as well, starting with a welcoming prayer walk this Wednesday. (Usually, the 1st meeting willl be held on Thursday but this Thursday is a pubilc hoilday--Thaipusam).

I hope that I'll enjoy a great year in the Year of the Rabbit as I am one myself. I'm all out to give my best (as I know God will take care of the rest) and make 2011 an awesome year. Oh ya, I would like to welcome Wendy Lee (my bubbly CG leader) back to the CF family. While she returns to CF after completing her intership, Kyle will be the one going away this semester. Anyway, all the best to Daryl & Co for their industrial traning.

Unexpected....

2011-01-13T12:23:00.012+08:00

....but well deserved! Things always happen, even though you may or may not expect it to come your way.

Well, yesterday I went for Toastmasters meeting at YMCA Ipoh. I have been attending such meetings for quite a few times to improve on my public speaking skills. This time, I attended the meeting alone as my parents had something on.

Yesterday's meeting was the first one of the year and it started at 8.03 pm. It started off with Sergeant At Arms (SAA) Pak Peter calling the meeting to order. Then the President of YMCA Ipoh Toastmasters Club CG Huan delivered his opening speech and made several announcement before Toastmater of the Evening (TME) Jacky Chong took over the rostrum.

Jacky first called upon the inspirer Pradeep to give the members and guests some inspiration messages. The inspiration that Pradeep gave the audience was "In order to change the world, one must first change him/herself before changing others". I totally agreed with this!

Then, it's back to Jacky and he asked the guests to introduce themselves one by one. There were a total of 8 guests, including me. Many of the guests were new faces and the number has broken the record of the club. Up next on the agenda was the introduction of role players where Jacky introduced the role players (including himself) and their respective roles.

Later, Jacky called upon the Word Master Singarair to provide the word for the evening - pre-dominant. The Word Master explained the meaning of the word and encouraged everyone in the hall to use the word in their speech if possible.

After that, Puan Nur Aida, the Table Topic Master, took over from the TME and began the Table Topic session. Since there were no theme available, the topics that she has prepared were of everyone's interest, starting from new year's resolution to Facebook. There were total 12 topics and 12 people iccluding 3 guests were given the privilege to voice their opinions. As each speaker were speaking, their time taken were being recorded by Pak Peter who was the timekeeper. Some of them spoke very well, such as May Foo, Dr Ngiam, Peter Ng etc but it was no surprise to me as they were experienced speaker. One Indian girl, Kani, caught my attention as she was able express herself well despite speaking for the first time.

It's time for manual projects presentations and there were supposed to have 2 speakers for the night. But one of them was unable to make it or the TME said he has chickened out, leaving Dore Rajah as the sole presenter of the night. And May Foo will be evaluating his presentation. Dore Rajah spoke on growing dragon fruit and presentation slides was very detailed but too wordy and he has to rush his speech towards the end as he realised that there isn't much time left. Anyway, there's always room for improvement.

When Dore Rajah was dome with his speech, it's time to take a short break. During this time, it's refreshment and fellowship time as members and guests mingled with one another. I had a question in my mind: whether guests are allowed to take part in the humour session. So I decided to ask CG Huan's opinion. CG said ususally it's for members only but he referred me to Dr Ngiam who was teh Humour Master of the night. Heeding his advice, I conslted Dr Ngiam who gave me the same reply but he said I can take part if there were no other people who were interested. I'm satisfied with his response, at least I asked.

Break time over, back to the show. Jacky introduced Dr Ngiam as the Humour Master. Dr Ngiam shared a number of jokes. Then, he paused for a while and mentioned there's one guest who would like to share his joke with everyone, That person is none other tham ME!! So I stepped forward and went ahead to share my joke. Here's the joke that I told:

One day, a small boy was not feeling well and was brought to a nearby clinic by his parents. While waiting for his his turn, he sat down on the bench in the clinic. The little boy noticed a pregnant woman sitting beside him and wondered why she has a big stomach.
So the boy asked the woman, "Excuse me, ma'am, may I know why is your stomach so big?"
"Oh, there's a baby inside my stomach." the woman replied.
"Is the baby good one or bad one?" the boy asked.
The woman asnwered, "Oh you silly boy, of course it's a good baby."
The little boy asked a third question but the question he asked really surprised the woman. The quiestion was: "If the baby is good, why did you eat it?"
(I hope you'll get the joke!!)

It's back to Dr Ngiam again and he wrapped up the session after sharing a few jokes. Then it's evaluation time and the General Evaluator, CG Huan, gave his review on the whole meeting. During his evaluation, he called upon Grammarian Pradeep, Ah Counter Chin Kok Wai and Timekeeper Pak Peter to report their findings. After the general evaluation was done, it's for some Golden Moment in which all members and guests voiced out their comments about the flow of the entire meeting.

Last but not least, the announcements of winners. Actually this was suppossingly be done before the Golden Moment but it doesn't matter. CG Huan announced the winners: first, the Champion for the Table Topc Session was Dr Ngiam (my guess was May Foo to be 1st, Kani 2nd & Dr Ngiam 3rd); second, the best Humourist gies to..... "drums roll* ME!!! I was totally surprised. I thought Dr Ngiam was going to make a clean sweep, I thought. There's no way I beat him as his jokes were better than mine. But it wasn't my joke that has won me the award, it's my courage. As a recognition for my efforts, CG Huan rewarded me with a token of appreciation. Then he drew the curtains of the meeting down. I walked out of the meeting room with heads held high as I made another breakthrough, having spoken in the Table Topic session in the previous meeting (which was on 18 Dec).

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2010-12-25T16:10:00.026+08:00

I watched the above movie on the 23rd Dec - 2 weeks after its release on Dec 9. Oh, I love the movie very much. Having read the whole series by C.S. Lewis and watched the first two movies, this is the movie I've been looking forward to watch.

Here is the review of the movie:

Director Michael Apted

Cast Alexander "Skandar" Keynes (Edmund Pevensie), Georgina Helen "Georgie" Henley (Lucy Pevensie), William Jack "Will" Poulter (Eustace Scrubb), Ben Barnes (Caspian X), Arabella Norton (Gael), Arthur Angel (Rhince), Gary Sweet (Lord Drinian), Billie Brown (Coriakin), Terry Norris (Lord Bern), Bruce Spence (Lord Rhoop), Laura Brent (Lilliandil), Tilda Swinton (Jadis the White Witch), William Moseley (Peter Pevensie), Anna Popplewell (Susan Pevensie), Liam Neeson (voice of Aslan), Simon Pegg (voice of Reepicheep)

Plot

The story begins with Edmund Pevensie queuing up to register to be in the military force, only to be distraced by his younger sister Lucy who claims that "you're supposed to help me with the groceries". The Pevensies return to their cousin Eustace Scrubb's house as they are staying with him, while their older siblings Peter and Susan are in America. Lucy is reading a postcard sent by her sister while Edmund listens. And when water starts pouring from a painting of a ship on the ocean in Lucy's bedroom, Eustace wondered "what's going on here". He then tries to remove the painting while Edmund tries to stop him but to no avail. The two boys and Lucy are dragged and transported into an ocean in Narnia when water flooded Lucy's bedroom.

When Lucy appears at the surface of the ocean and notices a big ship approaches. And she, Edmund and Eustace are rescued by the ship name the Dawn Treader. And the ship crew include their friend King Caspian X and Reepicheep. When the mouse saw Edmund and Lucy, he recognises their presence by bowing and saying "Your Majesties". While on the ship, Eustace finds the creatures there, especially Reepicheep the talking mouse are looking weird and hides in one corner, writing his diary. Then, a bird land in front of him and Eustace tries talking to the bird, whether it can speak like Reepicheep too. But a centaur notices it and makes joke of him. Seeing this, Eustace shooes the bird away.

Edmund and Caspian, meanwhile, are crossing their swords and have a great fight in front of the ship crew. Caspian praises Edmund's improved skills after the battle. Later, Reepicheep challenges Eustace to have a battle with him, using swords of course. Eustace at first couldn't hold the properly but later he chases after Reepicheep. But Reepicheep is quick enough that the boy couldn't catch him. In the end, Eustace is sent to the ground by Reepicheep, knocking down a basket in the process. A girl named Gael is hiding inside the basket and she is the daughter of Rhince, one of the ship crew. Lord Drinian (captain of the ship), Caspian and Lucy warmly welcome her abroad.

The Dawn Treader docks at the Lone Islands, a Narnian colony invaded by Calormen. Caspian and Edmund are captured and imprisoned while Lucy and Eustace are sold as slaves. Caspian then meets one of the lost lords, Lord Bern, who reveals that those who cannot be sold are sacrificed as a mysterious green mist. The ship crew rescues them, and they reclaim the Lone Islands from the Calormen. Bern later gives Caspian one of the seven swords originally given to the lords.

The ship later stops at another island and all the people abroadspend a night there before continuing their journey. While they are resting, suddenly Lucy is abducted by invisible Dufflepuds and is carried to another place. When Lucy finally wakes up, she wonders where she is and starts hearing voices speaking to her. She demands to know where the voices are coming from and what do they want from her. The Dufflepuds asked the girl to enter the manor of Coriakin to recite a visibility spell from his Book of Incantation. A door later opens in front of Lucy's eyes and she enters. After she enters, the door closes and disappear. Lucy finds the book but the letters on the cover of the book are all messed up. She gives it a blow and opens the book after the letters are back in place. She comes across a spell in which after she has read it, snow begins falling from above.

Elsewhere, Edmund wakes up and notices his sister is missing. He wakes everyone up and starts searching for his lost sister. Back to Lucy in Coriakin's manor. She flips to a page that contains a beauty incantation and she sees her reflection on the mirror and wondered if she could be as beautiful as her sister Susan. Then she rips the page from the book and the book flips quickly to another page revealing the visibility spell. After Lucy has recited the spell, Coriakin and the Dufflepuds become visible. Coriakin tells Lucy that he cast an invisibility spell on the Dufflepuds to protect them from the green mist.

Back to the Lucy's search party. Edmund, Caspian and Eustace notice the Dufflepuds are visible and ask what have they done to Lucy. Later, the door to Coriakin's manor reopens again with Coriakin and Lucy come out. Coriakin tells the ship crew that they must defeat the green mist by laying 7 swords of the lost lords on Aslan's table on Ramandu's island, which they can reach by following a blue star. Coriakin serves a warning that "you all are about to be tested". Meanwhile, Eustace notices the Dufflepuds start jumping away which he feels "this place is getting weirder and weirder".

Caspian leads his crew back to the Dawn Treader. Back on the ship, Lucy wakes up from her sleep and takes the beauty incantation page and casts the spell on herself, transforming herself into Susan. She finds herself at a party with her two brothers, who recognises her as Susan and do not know of Lucy or Narnia. Realising that she no longer exists as Lucy, she awakens from her vision of the party to return to her normal self. Then she sees Aslan's image appearing in the mirror, reminding her not to doubt herself as if it wasn't her, her siblings may not know what Narnia is.

The Dawn Treader later visits a volcanic island where all the crew members spend a night there. The next day, everyone wakes up and checks out the island. Not everyone, Eustace is still sleeping soundly. Lucy, Edmund and Caspian discover a pool that can turn anything to gold, including Lord Restimar. Edmund spots his sword and tries to scoop it up. Then, he and Caspian fight over who should own the pool. While they are crossing their swords, Lucy interrupts them, warning them that they both are being tempted.

The scene changed back to Eustace wakes up and finds he's alone. So he decided to look for his cousins. While he's on his way, Eustace stumbles across some valuable treasures. Tempted, he begins stealing a handful of the treasure. And when Edmund, Caspian and Lucy returns to the shore, they notice Eustace is not around. So Edmund and Caspian search for him. But they only manage to find one of his shoes and his diary, sensing something bad must has happened to the boy. Apart from that, they discover Lord Octesian's skeleton and get his sword. Suddenly, a dragon, which comes out of nowhere, attacks the Dawn Treader and abducts Edmund in the process. The dragon brought Edmund to where it has blown fire on the ground. Edmund notices the words on the ground "I AM EUSTACE". The Pevensies, Gael, Caspian & Reepicheep spend the night on the shore with Eustace the dragon. Reepicheep comforts Eustace that everything will be back to normal again.

When Gael wakes up the next day, she spots the blue star and wakes up Lucy who is sleeping beside her. Lucy and her then wake the rest up. The Dawn Treader sets sail again but was attacked during the journey. The ship cannot continue travelling unless the windsurfer is fixed. Then, the ship crew hears a loud bang and wonders if the ship hits something. But it turns out not, it is Eustace the dragon who drags the ship forward with his tail. Everyone is grateful for his assistance.

The ship arrives at Ramandu's Island and Caspian and the Pevensies discover Aslan's table. Around the table, there are three lost lords sleeping with their swords besides them. Edmund and Caspian gather their swords together with the ones they have found earlier on Aslan's table, but they are short of one. The blue star, in which they have spotted earlier, descends from the sky and transforms into a beautiful young lass, Lilliandil (Ramandu's daughter). Caspian asks her where to find the last sword and Lilliandil directs them to the Dark Island, liar of the mist.

The ship travels ot the Dark Island where they find Rhoop, the last surviving lord. Rhoop warns them not to think of thier fears but Edmud fails, his fear manifesting as a sea serpent that attacks the Dawn Treader. Rhoop betrays the group by throwing his sword in Eustace's direction, stabbing him on his back. Eustace then flies away, landing on a sandy island and encountering Aslan, who transforms him back into a boy and sends him back to Ramandu's Island with Rhoop's sword. The mist tries to tempt Edmund by transforming into Jadis the White Witch. But Edmund does not fall into her temptation that "I can make you my king and much more".

When Eustace wakes up, he finds himself a boy again and discovers Rhoop's sword beside him. Without hesitation, he runs to Aslan's table with the sword and places the sword there. But the mist tries to hold him back. But Eustace overcomes the mist and places the sword on Aslan's table. When the 7 swords are united, a bright blue beam is flashed out from the swords. The 3 sleeping lords awake, the mist disappears, the sea serpent dies and the sacrificed people reappear.

After that, the Dawn Treader returns to Ramandu's Island and the Pevensies are reunited with their cousin Eustace, who is happy he's a boy again. Later, the 3 of them, Reepicheep and Caspian sail to the silver sea, finding a shore before a massive wave. They walk towards the gigantic wave and Eustace observes that Aslan is walking beside them. Aslan tells them that his country lies beyond the wave, although they amy not return if they go. Reepicheep decided to enter Aslan's kingdom and lays down his sword on the ground. Aslan blesses him and the mouse happily paddles a coracle above the wave.

Then Aslan roars, opening a portal in the wave to send Lucy, Edmund and Eustace home. Aslan also tells the Pevensies that this is their last trip to Narnia as they will never return again but he encourages them to know him in their world by another name. Edmund and Lucy bid farewell to Aslan and Caspian before joining thier cousin as they enter the portal. The portal transfers them back to Lucy's flooded bedroom, in which the water recedes and flow back into the painting. Eustace's mother then called him, saying his friend Jill Pole is here to visit him. Eustace hangs the painting back in place and he and the Pevensies watch the ship disappear behind the waves before exiting the room. *THE END*

I'll Be Back

2010-12-06T17:35:00.006+08:00

"I'LL BE BACK!!"

This quote is directed to my fellow coursemates that I'll be joining them back in the Jan 2011 trimester.

I'm supposed to be in Daryl's group but as my juniors are having their industrial training in January, I have no idea where I stand. But after checking with the FGO, there are only two subjects offered, namely Professional Writing and Online Journalism. The rest of subjects aren't offered. I have no choice but to register for the 2 subjects first. Then, Cik Zuhairah informed me that I can do directed study for the 2 repeat subjects, but I need to register at the beginning of the trimester.

After the registration, I know that I'll be joining Eugene & Co for the coming trimester and happy to be in their midst again. I Just know that I'll stick with them until the end although I won't be graduating together with them. I plan to spring a surprise to them when the Jan 2011 trimester comes.

CF Spiritual Compass camp 2010 - Day Four

2010-10-21T16:59:00.008+08:00

15 October 2010

Due to insufficient rest, I only woke up at around 9am. I had a quick wash-up before going for the final worship session. And I missed breakfast on that day.

When I got to the hall, I noticed that our camp speaker Dr Leong was no longer there as he has left after having breakfast with other campers. The worship took place and later there was a sharing session where the campers shared about what they have learnt from the camp.

Later, Jensen the camp commander gave us a short briefing about packing our stuff and getting ready to go home. The campers then returned to their respective rooms and dorms to pack their luggage bags and gathered at the place Jensen directed them.

Then, when everyone were ready to go, they had a photo-taking session for memories that they've been together for the past three days before departing from Golden Sands.

All the campers adjourned at a nearby restaurant in PD after leaving the camp site. They even continued the craze for photo-snapping after having lunch. After that, it's time to say goodbye to one another. All the campers headed back to their respective campus.

After a few hours' journey, I'm back in Kampar again with a few others. My parents were already waiting for me there and I went back to Ipoh happily.

CF Spiritual Compass camp 2010 - Day Three

2010-10-20T16:58:00.004+08:00

14 Oct 2011
The Day began with a devotion at 7am in the morning. My group has gathered at the hut facing the seashore for the devotion. Later after devotion, we adjourned to join the rest of the campers for breakfast.

Then it's time for praise and worship session after breakfast. Later our speaker Dr Leong shared his sermon which was the last one for the camp. After that, lunch followed.

Free time was allocated for the campers. They could use this period of time to do whatever they wanted. Some returned to their dorms to rest, some went to the beach while some were involved in baking muffins and tarts for supper later. And I was in the third group. I could just go back to my dorm and take a nap, but I chose not to and join in the baking session instead.

Well, the baking session consumed a lot of time though in the making and baking of muffins and tarts. Not to worry, there were lots of helping hands. And some CF members from other campuses joined in as well and of course, we from Kampar campus taught them how to do this and do that (since we've done this for a few semesters already for our fund-raising). I even suggested that other campus CFs should also follow our footsteps too.

Time passed very quickly. And it's time for dinner. The make n bake session almost came to an end. All that was left was just to wait for the tarts and muffins to be baked. Some of us joined others in the cafeteria for dinner while some stayed to keep an eye on the ovens.

Another praise and worship session took place and later it's time for some sharings. Jensen as the camp commander asked his fellow campers about their own opinions and what they've learnt from this camp. Several campers stepped forward and shared their own personal points of view and experiences. Then, all the groups were summoned to have their own group discussions. The 5 groups gathered at their respective spots and did reflection on the whole camp. While waiting for other groups, my group played a game called the Watermelon Game after we're done.

Afterwards, it's time for.... supper!! All the campers and Dr Leong had a feast on the muffins and tarts that were readily made. Those who participated in the baking session saw their efforts paid off as all the campers were enjoying those pastries very much. And since it was the last night of the camp, all the campers spent time playing some games until the midnight.

CF Spiritual Compass camp 2010 - Day One

2010-10-18T16:55:00.008+08:00

12 Oct 2010
Jensen and I woke up early in the morning, getting ready to go for the camp. We only managed to sleep for about 4-5 hours. Both of us loaded our bags and went to pick up Chipmunk (Mel Hor) and Goldfish (Renjie) again before meeting up with other campers at the bus stop opposite the basketball court.

The UTAR bus soon arrived and the campers boarded the bus. Then, the journey began with the bus leading the way followed by cars driven by Jensen, Mr K and Kelvin Wong (alone). In the middlie of the journey, Mr K went another way to pick up someone else. All the remaining vehicles headed towards Setapak to pick up campers from there.

Soon, the campers made a stop at the Setapak campus and had lunch there. Then later, those campers from Setapak boarded the bus and the journey began again. It was a long journey and everyone was enjoying the view during the trip.

When all the vehicles were at PD, all the drivers were trying their best to locate the camp site. After searching for a while, we finally arrived at Golden Sands. And when I got down from Jensen's car, Derk gave me a warm hug since he hasn't seen me for quite some time. And we chatted while waiting for the rest to get off the bus.

Then, all the campers gathered at the hall in Golden Sands after long hours of travel. First they unloaded their bags and placed them in the compound near the office and gathered at the hall. There, all the campers got to know one another through a simple ice-breaking session. Later, a camp booklet and name tag were distributed to each camper. And the campers gathered their respective groups according to the list available in the booklet.

Afterwards, all the campers were given a briefing about the whole camp and later assigned to rooms and dorms. Of course, the guys and girls were separated and they stayed in different rooms and dorms but all the campers were under one roof (i.e they're staying in the same block). All the campers went to get their bags and moved into their respective places of stay and took a short rest before preparing themselves for the rest of the day.

Then, it's time for dinner. As all the campers were enjoying their meal, Dr Leong Tien Fock announced his arrival. The campers greeted him and he joined us for dinner. The next agenda of the day was the 1st praise and worship session, followed by message by Dr Leong. That was the 1st of 4 messages he's gonna share throughout the camp. All his messages were about how to find direction in our daily lives, which was the purpose of this camp.

When Dr Leong was done sharing his sermon, it's time for supper. All the campers had a brief supper before returning to their respective dorms. Then lights off!

CF Spiritual Compass camp 2010 - Pre-Preparation Day

2010-10-17T16:53:00.012+08:00

11 Oct 2010

Early in the morning, my father drove me down from Ipoh to Kampar as I was going to join the UtarCF camp. I have packed the things rquired for the camp a few days earlier and loaded my luggage into the car boot before we departed.

Actually, I had an appointment with Mr Angus Ng (Utar counsellor) in the morning. So I chatted with him for about an hour. Later, I met up with my father after the counselling session. It was nearly noon and my dad said he has contacted Jensen and invited him to join us for lunch. Jensen was the camp commander whom I've been keeping in touch with, mainly asking for any updates for the CF camp.

We met Jensen at Tesco Kampar and had a wonderful meal at KFC. Later, my father dropped me at Jensen's house and left for home, leaving me together with Jensen. Well, I'm staying overnight at his place before participating in the camp the next day. Jensen told me that there were some unfinished tasks of the combined camp. So we went to fulfill the tasks together.

First we picked up Melody Hor (a.k.a. Chipmunk) in Westlake, accompanied her for lunch and later made a return to Westlake again, this time Renjie, my coursemate, joined us. Then, off we go to settle the things which were not yet done. Jensen dropped Melody and I at Cherry House to laminate the name tags of the participants of the camp, while he and Renjie adjourned to do other things and will be picking both Chipmunk and myself later.

Melody and I spent about an hour at the printing shop. While we're there, both she and yours truly helped each other in completing the task assigned to us. Then, Jensen fetched both of us back to his house at Eastlake. I went to have my shower in Jensen's room (with his permission of course) and later took a short nap before moving on with the rest of the day. Jensen took his nap as well after sending Chipmunk home.

Around 5.30pm, we made our move again. Jensen and I went to pick up Goldfish and Chipmunk again and we adjourned for dinner. Weng Kin joined us as well and we had a wonderful time together. Actually Weng Kin was supposed to do some shopping for items needed during the camp. So at around 10.30pm, we went into Tesco to look for the things on his shopping list. It was very last minute when we did our shopping. But we managed to get the shopping done though we didn't manage to get some of the required items.

Then we proceeded to Mr K's house. Mr K welcomed us and summoned us to help do some final preparation works. We helped out to sort out the camp T-shirts according to the sizes ordered by the group members. Then later we helped to fold the camp booklets while Mr K was getting them printed. And when we're done with everything, it was already 1am the next morning. We then said goodbye to Mr K before heading home.

Decided

2010-10-07T21:04:00.002+08:00

I made up my mind to join the CF Spiritual Compass camp instead of CGBC Lifegame camp this time.

This time I decided to join the CF gang as I've missed out the combined camp last year. I've chosen to go for the CGBC Amazing Race camp in 2009 instead of the CF camp. I felt dejected for having to miss the CF camp last year cos it clashes with the CC camp.

Again this year, the same thing happened. But I've decided to go PD instead of Camerons as the CF camp is going to be held there while CC campers are going to CheFoo Centre for their camp. I've been to CheFoo once, that was during the 1st CF camp I joined.

I confirmed my participation by handing in the camp form to camp commander Jensen Chen. And I'm looking forward to the camp.

Hiatus

2010-06-30T21:01:00.002+08:00

I won't be updating my blog from July to September due to some personal reasons. Thank you.

9-Year-Old Penang Girl Gives Birth???

2010-06-27T23:02:00.008+08:00

Oh my goodness!! Did I hear it wrongly or did it really happen?

Apparently, it is a reality that this 9-year-old Penangite girl has become Malaysia's youngest mother by giving birth to a baby boy recently. The father of the child was her 14-year-old neighbour. But the girl's parents did not lodge a police report. I couldn't believe such thing could happen in our lovely country.

Teenage pregnancies are happening all around the world and this is quite alarming. Even in the country itself, teenage pregnancies happen among the teens. But I was totally surprised that child pregnancy like above would set its foot into Malaysia. This is nothing to be proud of, it's just another case of teenage pregnancy. Girls in today's society tend to reach their puberty earlier than they're supposed to be, around the age of 8 or 9.

Whle this girl becomes Malaysia's youngest mother, the world's youngest mother was Peruvian Lina Medina who gave birth when she was 5 years and 7 months. She entered puberty at 5 and experienced extraordinary development of her body which later she has a bulging stomach. Assuming that she has a tumour, Lina's parents brought her to a hospital for a medical check-up and discovered that Lina was already having a 7-month pregnancy. The 5-year-old delivered a baby boy named Gerardo on May 14, 1939 by Caesaran section. Lina's father was acquitted of child sexual abuse due to lack of evidence and the identity of the one who impregnated Lina was still remain a mystery.

I seriously hope that such case would not happen to my daughters when I have my own family and children in the future.

What a scare

2010-06-16T17:24:00.002+08:00

I almost had a scare just now. I accidentally locked the toilet door from the outside... and scared that I cannot enter the toilet anymore. And when I want to go to Danish House office to complain, I used my key to open the grill door but the door won't budge. Oh man! How to go out like this? Thank goodness, one of my housemates returned just in time. He tried to open the grill door as well. At first, he also couldn't open it but with a little force, he managed to open the door. Then I told him about the toilet door. He tried opening it but to no avail. So we both went to the office to request for service. We told the officer-in-charge what happened and filled in the service request form. Shortly after we went back to our house, two officers came to our rescue. It turned out to be some minor problems as I didn't realise that the lock to the toilet door knob was pressed in. Things go back to normal after they fixed the doors.

Another scare that I experienced was yesterday. I went to school for class around 4pm. After parking my motorcycle, I headed straight to class. Class ended slightly earlier and I decided to go home, preparing to go for CF. But then I realised that my motor key was missing. Oh no! Where and when did I lose it? I panicked and tried tracing back my steps. I even sat down to think when is the moment I lost my key and prayed for God asking Him for help. Then a security guard asked me what happened and I told him what happened. He directed me to Department of Safety and Security. So I went there to report my loss to an officer that I saw there. Then he told me that another security guard has found my key somewhere and brought it to the dept. Thank goodness! I thanked him and left the place after taking my key. I happily returned home and thanking God for answering my prayers by sending a good Samaritan to help me.

Back-to-back Welcoming Nights

2010-06-09T23:11:00.004+08:00

I had an awesome time attending two consecutive welcoming nights for the past two days, organised by CGBC Campus Connect (7 June) and UTAR CF (8 June) resepctively. Both welcoming nights were to give warm welcomes to the freshies who have just came to UTAR and Kampar. Let me highlight about both events.

CGBC Welcoming Night
To kickstart the new semester, Campus Connect has organised a welcoming night using the theme of FIFA Fiesta, since the World Cup 2010 is just around the corner (in fact, it will start 2 days from now till 11 July). Sis Mun Yee and a few other brothers and sisters were involved in the organisation of the event. Everything has been planned well and there were lots of exciting activities awaiting those who attended the night. There were flags pasted on the walls of the church and all those flags were the 32 countries who have qualified for the tournament including defending champions Italy.

A few days before the event took place, preparation works have been done including decoration of the church which involved painting the flags on round-shaped cut-out cardboards. Apart from that, there was a skit practice by the team who have went to Sarawak for mission trip last month during the semester break.

On the day itself, several brothers and sisters were there early to make final preparation before the event. By 7pm, guests started coming in and there were quite a lot of new faces turning up for the event. Some members even had flags painted on their faces and the painting work was done by PC and KLynn before the start of the event. Approaching the night, more and more people were there for the exciting event.

Adeline and Kelvin Tan were the emcees for the night. They welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming. Then, PC gave her welcoming speech before the time was handed over to Kai Jun for ice-breaking sessions. Everyone participated in the games introduced by Kai Jun. The games were quite simple nevertheless everyone had a great time, though KJ has been cracking his head for games which has relation to football.

Then, it's time for worship after everyone has warmed up through the ice-breaking session. Jialing was in charge of praise and worship session and she led the crowd to a few songs. After that, the Sarawak mission trip team was on stage where they performed a skit with the title Set Me Free. The cast was none other than those who spent one week in Sarawak, spreading the gospel to the Iban people there. However, there were some replacement as the four sisters from CGBC Ipoh who joined in the trip were being replaced by other CGBC members. Anyway great performance from them as they have spent time practising the skit the previous night.

Up next, it's time for testimony sharing. Yu Shia and Richard were called forward to give their own testimonies about how God came into their life and changed their lives. After that, it's the moment that everyone has been waiting for---time to MAKAN!! There were a lot of food served. Pizza, sandwiches, tidbits and a football cake with lots of small flags on top. Everyone had time interacting and fellowshipping with one another. After some time, those who were there started leaving for their respective homes, preparing for the next day.

UTAR CF Welcoming Night
It was held at the Grand Kampar Hotel again this time, just like the previous semester. This time, several churches were involved in serving in different section of the event, for example Chinese Methodist Church in ushering, FGA in ice-breaker, Hope Church in registration.

The purpose of CF organising this event was to welcome the new freshies and also to introduce the churches available in Kampar to them. Many people turned up for the event.... freshies, representatives from churches and exisiting CF members. After getting themselves registered, all these people proceeded into the gathering hall where the event was held.

When everyone has settled themselves, the night began with MCs Gin Mah and Felicia Grace addressed everyone with a warm welcome. After that, both of them acknowledged the presence of representatives of different churches around Kampar by calling the names one by one. Besides this, representatives of the newly formed Catholic Students Society were in out midst as well. Glad that they were able to join us.

Then, it's time for some ice-breaking session with Mindy from FGA was in charge of the session. She played a footwear game which everyone has to take off their footwear and placed them on a certain spot. This sounds familiar to me as in the previous welcoming night held during last semester, a similar game was played. Then everyone has to get two different types of footwear and started to look for not the owner but another person who has another side of the footwear. Everyone should be connected in a circle in the end but somehow everyone managed to match the shoes together, though the circle was not properly formed.

Alright, everyone's back to their seats and what's next? The MCs asked if anyone knew what's the next agenda. One brother answered "Makan time!" That's right, we had our first round of food first before the night continued. GKH has prepared fried rice and fried noodles for everyone and everyone had their turns to take the food. Later, fellowship took place as everyone went around to get to know one another. At this time, freshies approached to the booths available there to find out more about the churches and their weekly activities.

After that, it's time for singing praises to the Lord. Ray Leong, Shirley Kwong, Jensen Chen and Wendy Lee led the congregation into a string of worship songs, starting with Hari Ini and ending with Spirit Touch Your Church. It was indeed good to see Christians worshipping the Almighty God together. Later, the current CF president Kelvin Wong gave his welcoming speech. He used a quotation by Eric Ong, the previous president, in delivering his speech. Eric Ong has said that "Thou shall rock Kampar" and later it is added that we CFers should rock UTAR as well. Kelvin quoted this in his speech and added something else to it. This is what he said, "In order to rock Kampar and Utar, you must first rock yourself." I agree with what he said, in order to make a dfference and win Utar for Christ, we as CFers must first take the initiative to change ourselves first and commit ourselves to Chirst before we can change others and win more souls for Christ. Well said, Kelvin!

Later, our beloved CF advisor Mr K delivered his speech as well. In his speech, he highlighted a few things including the CF camp and the joint Christmas celebration. The camp is held from 12-15 Oct and the venue is in Port Dickson.and The theme for this camp is Spiritual Compass, "a compass with an arrow that points to our Abba Father" (Jensen, 2010). In a dilemma again cos CC camp is from 15-17 Oct with the theme of Purpose Driven Life Game. The similar situation has occured again where I have to make another wise choice of which camp to attend, just like last year where I was forced to choose between CGBC Amazing Race camp and CF We Are One camp. Last year, I made a right choice by going to join my fellow Connectors in the Amazing Race camp. I hope I can do the same for this time as well. Tough choice but I'm going to make decision of what camp to go at the end of this semester.

Another thing Mr K mentioned was the Christmas celebration 2010 which will be held at the Heritage Hall in November. This is an interesting event which "brings people to one of the fundamentals of Christianity, the worship to the Lord, for the angels sing with and praise God on high with harps and lyres" (Shu, 2010). Mr K asked if everyone is willingly volunteering themselves for the organisation of the wonderful event and several brave souls including a few freshies, stood up in response. Later they were handed a survey form where they have to choose in which areas they would like to offer their service. Really looking forward for this event, even though I'll be enjoying my 3-months long semester break and doing my FYP during the break. But hopefully I can make it for the event.

After Mr K has ended his speech, he called upon Pastor Nicky of Praise Community Centre for the closing prayer before everyone was dismissed. A slideshow of information of the churches around Kampar was displayed Besides that, refreshed was served as well. Some people started leaving while some stayed back for more fellowship. The CF committee members had a meeting before they went home.

Alright, that's all I wanna say about the 2 exciting activities. I really enjoyed myself during these two nights, although I was tired and exhausted. I didn't really snap much photos for both the events. Sorry no photos to show this time. If u wanna see photos of these 2 events, check out Facebook for those photos which I was tagged in some of the photos. Thanks and have a nice day.

Penang One Day Trip (May 29)

2010-05-30T21:38:00.006+08:00

My parents and I went to Penang to visit my brother who has just finished his final exams. Apart from that, the trip was to give all 3 of us a break from our busy life.

We began our journey at 7 in the morning and took 2 hours to reach there. We waited for my brother David at a petrol station that he asked us to wait and he appeared about 15 minutes later. Then, he brought us to eat dim sum. The place was opposite KDU College where my brother was pursuing his degree in Electronic Engineering.
Later, my brother drove us to visit the Toy Museum for a visit. After paying entrance fees of RM10 per person, we went in and checked the museum. My brother told us that foreigners have to pay double as the museum is the world's largest toy museum. Cool eh? It was indeed an eye-opener for me as there were all sorts of toys inside the museum. Took lots of photos during the visit.

Spiderman

Lilo & Stitch

Iron Man

Pokemon

Silver Surfer

After that, my brother brought us to the apartment he stays. It was quite a long distance and my father had to follow my brother all the way as he won't get lost. Soon, we arrived at the place and realised why my brother took some time to meet with us. The place he stays is quite far from our meeting place.

We had some fellowship time together as one family. Then, I accessed the Intranet and showed my results to my brother. He said it was not surprising as he himself has failed and retook few subjects during his certificate and diploma. But he persisted on and managed to complete his studies. He then gave me some motivation so I'm able to move ahead and not to worry about the results I got. That's another reason why we're there in Penang.

Later, we went for dinner and two of his housemates joined us. After that, we went our separate ways. My brother followed his housemates back while we headed southward to return to our hometown. We took a longer time to reach home as it was raining while on the way. We were tired from the journey, but it was a nice trip indeed. Hopefully I can take it easy about my exam resuls and continue on with my 3rd year.

I'm Back

2010-05-14T22:29:00.004+08:00

Yup, I'm back in my beloved hometown Ipoh again after finishing my final exam and thus my 2nd year. I came back the previous night after my parents came to pick me up from Kampar, but not without attending the last service in Campus Connect. Eugene conducted the worship session with mostly Malay songs as he's one of the participants in the misssion trip to Sarawak and Bro Albert preached about King Solomon using the book of Ecclesiastes as his reference.

I'm still thinking of how to spend my semester break. And as for today, I've watched Iron Man 2 and also the Thomas Cup semi-finals. Mentioning about the badminton competition, Malaysia bowed out of the tournament again, losing tamely 0-3 to the mighty China, who will meet the Indonesian squad that have brushed aside Japan in another semi-final tie.

The CF committee members have started their committee retreat today in the lovely and quiet town of Kampar, planning for the activities and most importantly the direction for the coming 2010/11 term. Hope the Lord will provide the 13 of them with wisdom so they can make well-crafted plans for the CF. I will uphold them in my prayers.

Another thing I want to remember in my prayer is about the mission trip to Sarawak. Several brothers and sisters are going on this mission trip, among them are Eugene, Daniel, Irena, Patty, Pei Lee, PC, KL & 4 other sisters. May they have a wonderful trip and hope they can reach out to those people in Sarawak and share the Gospel with them, though they have no choice but to communicate in BM. But let this not be a barrier to them in their mission trip and hope that the people there will be touched and blessed by them.

Tomorrow will be the last day of the final exam. All the best, people! And happy holidays to those who have finished their exams and back in their respective hometowns to spend their semester break.

Free

2010-05-12T18:21:00.003+08:00

Yippie! Finally I have finished my final exam and 2nd year. Now I can relax and enjoy my holidays before ready for the final year.

When I reflect back to my performance in all the 5 papers, I'm quite disappointed with myself in 2 papers--- HoEL and L.Learning. I couldn't recall whatever I've memorised while doing revision and fared badly in both papers esp for Language Learning, which I was completely blank when answering the questions. Based on my poor performance, I would have to repeat these 2 subjects if I don't pass. And I have myself to blame for this. I will do much better next time and perhaps spend more time doing whatever is priority.

And for the other 3, I'm quite satisfied with how I did in the final exam even though I could do better than that. Sometimes, I seemed to have ran out of ideas when doing certain questions but at least I tried and wrote whatever I feel is correct based on my understanding.

It's all over now. No point of thinking whatever that has happened in the final exam, I can't do anything to change whatever has passed. All I can do now is to look ahead and take a break from my studies. While relaxing myself during the holidays, perhaps I have to start thinking of what topic that I'm gonna do for my final year project as I'm moving into the 3rd and final year of my degree in EL.

Will be heading back to my hometown soon to spend time with my famialy again. Not sure how to utilise the short semester break as I'm not going for the mission trip to Sarawak. But I'll make plans for myself during the holidays. To those who are going, have a pleasant trip. And hope that the new committee would have a wonderful committtee retreat as they use this time to plan activities for the next coming semester.

Alright, that's all I wanna share for now. Have to start packing since I'm heading back to Ipoh tomorrow. Catch ya'll next time. Have a nice holiday, everyone! And all the best to those who are still having exams!

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T12:08:00.007+08:00

It's Mother's Day today. And most people would spend their precious time with their own mothers. They would do delightful things for their own mothers to bring cheer and joy to the persons who have brought them into this wonderful world. Some people would treat their mothers with meals or presents or even bring them to places that they would feel happy. Some even dedicate songs or poems to their mothers.

I wish I could celebrate Mother's Day with my own mother but I couldn't. This is because I'm still in my exam period which will end on 12 May. Even though my hometown is quite near to Kampar, I don't travel back to Ipoh often. I should've made a trip back to Ipoh but yours truly here need more time for revision for the remaining 2 papers. Anyway, I will get to see my mom soon, after I've finished my final exam. And I made a courteous call to her, wishing her Happy Mother's Day.

Here, I would like to dedicate a song to her as well as to all mothers around the world. The title of the song is Really Love You (真的爱你) sung by HK band Beyond. I apologise to those who can't understand the song 'cause the song's in Cantonese.

Verse 1
无法可修饰的一对手
带出温暖永远在背后
纵使罗嗦始终关注
不懂珍惜太内疚
沉醉于音阶她不赞赏
母亲的爱却永未退让
决心冲开心中挣扎
亲恩总可报答

Pre-Chorus
春风化雨暖透我的心
一生眷顾无言地送赠

Chorus
是你多么温馨的目光
教我坚毅望着前路
叮嘱我跌倒不应放弃
没法解释怎可报尽亲恩
爱意宽大是无限
请准我说声真的爱你

Verse 2
无法可修饰的一对手
带出温暖永远在背后
纵使罗嗦始终关注
不懂珍惜太内疚
仍记起温馨的一对手
始终给我照顾未变样
理想今天终于等到
分享光辉盼做到

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Disappointment

2010-05-07T00:25:00.003+08:00

2 things that happened recently which make me feel disappointed:

1) My poor performance in my first exam paper, History of English Language. The night before, I went to sleep early around 11pm, but I couldn't fall asleep. Because of lack of sleep plus revision, my mind went totally blank when dealing with the exam questions. I have answered what I could do but were clueless about the rest. And I couldn't think about what to write anymore. So I decided to leave the exam hall earlier as there's no point of me sitting there if I can't think what else to write. I'm not sure whether I can pass this subject based on my poor performance, but hopefully I will.

2) I didn't get my order of drink. This happened just a while ago where a few of us went Ghany yum cha after service. I only ordered 100Plus as I'm quite full from the refreshment after the service ended. My friends received what they've ordered but not me. I waited and waited and still the soft drink didn't come until when we left the place. I don't know what's wrong but perhaps those Ghany staff were too busy with loads of orders that they forgot about my order. Anyway, I'm not so thirsty at that time. But this is the 2nd time I get my order; the 1st time was when I went yum cha with CF gang few weeks ago. I ordered both food and drink but in the end, I only got my drink but not the roti Maggi that I wanted.

Trading My Sorrows

2010-04-30T16:10:00.003+08:00

I'm trading my sorrow
I'm trading my shame
I'm laying it down for the joy of the Lord

I'm trading my sickness
I'm trading my pain
I'm laying it down for the joy of the Lord

Chorus
And we say
Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord! Yes, yes, Lord!
Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord! Yes, yes, Lord!
Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord! Yes, yes, Lord!
Amen!

Bridge
I'm pressed but not crushed
Persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
I'm blessed beyond the curse
For His promise will endure
And His joy's gonna be my strength

Though the sorrow may last for the night
His joy comes with the morning

.... and the End of Y2S3

2010-04-23T20:54:00.001+08:00

With the last presentation done, I have finally completed the 2nd year of my degree in EL! But it's not over yet... final exam is just around the corner and I have to start doing my proposal for FYP next trimester. It's going to get busy for me in the final year. But I haven't thought of any topics for the project. Never mind, focus on the final exam first, then think about it sometimes. I hope I can get some inspiration of what I'm gonna do.

This trimester has been great though it was tiring and hectic as all 30 of us have to work non-stop right from the start of the trimester all the way to the end. Not only my batch, my fellow seniors and juniors experienced the same thing. All of us have to deal with loads of assignments, presentations and exams and our seniors were working on their FYP proposals. As for my batch, we had our briefing yesterday by Mr Renu.

I did my best for every assignment, presentation and test throughout the whole trimester. Some were quite satisfying while some were not up to my expectations. I even didn't play my part well in one assignment that my group members were quite furious at me. Never mind, I learnt my lesson and won't repeat the same mistake again.

As for CF, it was quite interesting and enjoyable as there were lots of fun-filled activities throughout the 14 weeks, from tart-baking on the 1st week to welcoming night on 2nd week all the way to the AGM and just concluded installation night last Tuesday. I have missed some of the meetings due to business in my studies. Still, I managed to make it for the rest of the weeks. A brand new team of committee members were being chosen to serve for the coming 2010/2011 term and new cell group leaders and co-leaders were appointed.

As usual, towards the end of every trimesters, students took photos with their lecturers to keep as memory, whether it's group or individual.

Individual photos with lecturers:

With Mr Soh

With Ms Mok

With Mr Pritam

With Mr Renu

Group shots

With Mr Pritam

With Mr Soh

With Ms Mok

With Mr Renu

There isn't a proper group shot as many have left after our final presentation. This is just one photo that I managed to snap. In the picture are (from left) Monica, Manmeet, Pui Chee, Mr Renu and Jia Ling. Pui Chee and Jia Ling are supportive enough that they come in Punjabi attires and watch the rest of groups present their lesson plans as they have presented theirs the previous day

Actually there's another lecturer which I have left out that is my academic advisor Mr Mahalingam. I have missed his last class this morning therefore didn't managed to take picture with him.

Last presentation....

2010-04-23T18:32:00.002+08:00

Aaahhh... finally it's done! Mission accomplished!

I had my last presentation on Lesson Plan just now and it was quite okay. But my fellow coursemates and I have to wait outside the FAS meeting room for more than an hour before we could enter. Why? Our Y2S1 juniors were having their presentations on Psycholinguistics inside. There were 8 groups altogether and some groups were very long-winded that Mr Renu had asked them to cut it short as he has another 5 groups (us) to listen to.

At last they're done and left the place after checking out their coursework marks. Then it's our turn. We went in and presented our lesson plans group by group. After that, we had to leave the room as there's another class coming in. So we went to check out our coursework marks somewhere else. After that, it's photo taking session as usual. Then everyone started returning home.

CF Installation Night + Finale

2010-04-21T15:47:00.002+08:00

CF had its final meeting of the whole trimester yesterday with the installation of the newly-chosen committee. It was an awesome night indeed.

I arrived there early after dinner. The meeting was held in the main sanctuary of the church. Several members were already, mostly are those who involved in the worship team. It was a mixed team of old and new committee members as some were retiring and some were just chosen to serve for another term. Soon, more and more people turned up. Wow.... those in the old and new committee dressed in smart attires as that night was utmost important for them.

The night began with Shu Ern, Sui Yen and Wendy Lee led the congregation into a worship session. Then, Eric Ong went on the stage to welcome and thank everyone for coming. A video clip of what we have done throughout the whole trimester was shown. Everyone enjoyed watching and had some good laughs when some funny photos were shown.

Later, the moment has come. Mr K, our advisor, first called out the previous committee to be on stage and mentioned those names that were stepping down: Eric, Melody, Renjie, Shu Ern, Shu and Jensen (who couldn't make it to come). Then, Mr K introduced the new committee to everyone, starting from Kelvin Wong all the way to Kao Meng, according to their position.

He also called out the new CG leaders to the front (which in fact they're already at the front) and also co-leaders. Out of the 7 new leaders, only Kelvin Wong maintained his position. The previous CG leaders were appointed co-leaders instead. Apart from Kelvin, the other 6 leaders were Kyle (vice-chairman), Chang En (asst secretary), Kai Ning (treasurer), Florencetina (asst treasurer), Wendy Lee (worship coordinator) and Derk (word coordinator). As for the rest of the old and new committee, they were assigned to be co-leaders as well. Only 2 extra names were called: Gin Mah and Carlie Yong.

Mr K also called upon Fiona Wong and Kent Tan who both will be leaving for Setapak soon to the front to pray for them. After that, the installation process began. It was exactly the same one conducted by Rev Yong last time at the same place. First, the new committee, CG leaders and co-leaders responded and agreed that they would serve with all the best they can for the coming term, then later it's the congregation's turn to respond before the night continued.

The next agenda was the introduction of the new CGs by the new word coordinator. There were 7 groups in total and Derk introduced all the groups one by one: first the leaders then co-leaders later the members. All the members took note of which group they're placed in and started to get into their respective groups. And as for myself, I am under Wendy Lee a.k.a monkey. There's something special about my new group: most of the members are from Ipoh, except for Nicholas Aw. The groups were unnamed yet as the new theme was yet to be decided by the new committee. Perhaps they will come to a decision when they have a committee retreat after the final exam. After getting into groups, we played a game before the night moved on.

Then it's sharing time. First by Mr K, who spoke a little bit about the direction of CF for the new term then highlighted some of the activities for next trimester: we're gonna have tart-baking and welcoming night again, just like this trimester, and recruitment drive plus AGM (the one held last week was only internal; this one was the real one as involvement of DSA is needed for the filing of the information of the new committee). After our advisor, several people shared as well esp for those outgoing committee members (Jensen's message was read by Eric) and the 2 persons who will be going to Setapak. And Melody ended her speech by singing a portion of the Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) as she is popularly known as the chipmunk.

Later, there's presentation of souvenirs to Phee Oh Nah and Kent by Kelvin Wong. Then, Eric Ong closed this final meeting with a prayer and everyone adjourned outside for some light refreshment. Everyone had fun chit-chatting and fellowshipping with one another. Some even went yum cha after that.

UTAR 1st Karaokay Competition

2010-04-18T16:15:00.003+08:00

UTAR Music Club has recently organised its first singing competition, starting from auditions to semi-final to yesterday night's grand final. And Banking and Finance Y2S3 student Lam Sai Yuen (Max) emerged as the champion.

Themed The Path of Dreamz, the whole competition began with the audition sessions held for 4 days from 22nd to 26th March 2010, which saw the participation of 170 participants. The figure surpassed the number expected by the organising committee. The participants were informed of the results after evaluation from judges through videos captured during the audition sessions. And 20 participants were selected to compete in the next round.

These Top 20 participants contested in the semi-final round which was held one week after the auditions. On 2nd April, the semi-final round was held at DDK5 and the contestants were called out one by one to perform their songs. After all the participants have performed, the master of ceremony entertained the crowd while the judges finalised their results. And the Top 10 finalists were announced.

On 17th April, the grand final of the competition was held at the Heritage Hall from 6-11pm. A lot of students turned up for the event. After the arrival of the VIPs, the event kicked off with the Top 10 finalists performed We're All in This Together, a song from High School Musical. After that, the judges were introduced by Masters of Ceremony, Bani and Joey, following by opening speeches by Dr Lim Tuck Meng, the Dean of Faculty of Science and Mr Loy Seng Hoong, the organising chairman of the event. Later, DSA officer Ms Esther Loo joined Dr Lim and Mr Loy for the opening ceremony.

There were 3 rounds. In the first round, all the 10 participants performed a song of their choice and later the judges gave some feedbacks after their performances. Some contestants did quite well while some needed to improve their performances based on the comments given by Ms Evon Soh, Ms Angel Ang and Mr Khoo. After that, members of the Dance Club wowed the crowd with a few dance performances.

Then the competition resumed with the 2nd round--duet performance. All the 10 participants were divided into 5 pairs and performed songs they've chosen together. Interesting performances from all of them especially the boy-girl pair of Contestant #4 Lam Sai Yuen & Contestant #1 Cherrie Tan Xiang Wen (the rest were either all males or all females). Later, there's voting session from the audience to determine the Top 5.

The votes were counted after the ushers have collected them. While they're doing so, the Top 20 came on stage to entertain the audience. There were 3 performances: one from all the guys singing My Love by Westlife, one from all the girls and later all of them joined hands for the last performance. Supposed there were 10 participants, but only 9 were there. The last participant who wasn't there was Ezreena Jasmine, the sole Indian in the Top 20.

The Top 5 was later announced and the 5 participants who qualified for the final round were Contestant #3 Liew Kok Weong, Max, Contestant #5 Goey Heng Ee, Contestant #8 Dang Beh Lee and Contestant #10 P'ng Geok Thye. In the 3rd round, they're required to perform a fast song and all 5 of them did extremely well, turning the whole competition into a concert. And while one contestant was singing, the rest of the contestants went on the stage as well to dance.

After their performances, it's time for the judges to decide who to be crowned as champion. While they're doing that, Bani went around to ask for opinions who's gonna win. Of all the people he asked, only Max and Geok Thye's names were mentioned. Then, Bani went onto the stage to join his friends for some performances, which began with the famous song from Barney the purple dinosaur. Since Mother's Day is drawing near, Bani and friends performed Really Love You (真的爱你) a song in Cantonese by Beyond, which signified mother's love.

Later, there's souvenir presentation to the VIPs and the honourable judges by the organising chairman. Then, the moment that everyone has been watiing for came: the announcement of the results. The most popular singer award was won by Max, based to the votes for the most favourite contestant. The 2nd runner-up was Geok Thye, Goey won the 1st ruuner-up and Max made it double when he was annunced as the champion of the 1st Karaokay Competition. He then performed Black Silence (黑色幽默) by Jay Chou, the song that he sang during the first round. He even brought his girlfriend onto the stage while singing the song. How romantic!

The MCs, Bani and Joey, later invited all the organising committee members, helpers and ushers onto the stage. They also thanked everyone for spending their time to witness such an excitiing event before closing the event.

Editor's note I didn't really noticed what happened during the clasing ceremony cos I've left early. And since I haven't taken my dinner before going, I went mamaking at Ghany after returning from campus.

End of Week 13

2010-04-17T11:47:00.002+08:00

Oh... just one more week to go and this trimester's gonna end. Very soon I have to deal with my FYP already. And next week is the final week for my seniors in PJ, Vinuraj and the rest.

Campus Connect had its final cell meeting with Burger Nite on Monday. Many people came and made their own burgers themselves. Everyone enjoyed the night and cell will resume next trimester.

Also, there's AGM during CF this week. A few people stepped down, some people stayed and there are some new faces in the committee as well. Next week is the installation and those chosen have to wear formal for the important function. I hope CF will continue to shine under the new leadership of Kelvin Wong.

The last assignment came... it's writing lesson plan. And two more presentations to go--one for Mass Media and another for the lesson plan. Then, have to do revision as well as final exam is drawing near.

CF AGM

2010-04-14T10:40:00.009+08:00

CF had its annual general meeting last night. This was a crucial time as new leaders were to be chosen to lead the CF for another year. A few people from the previous committee have decided to step down and retire after serving for quite a long period. They are Eric Ong, Jensen Chen, Melody Hor, Tan Renjie, Shu Ern & Shu Tze Yuh, with Renjie serving the longest among the six.

Praise and worship took place as usual with Calvin & Sui Yen leading the session. After that, our CF advisor Mr Kuek took over and spoke about Why Do We Need Leaders. Beside that, he also has messages to share to those who are stepping down--Don't Worry, Be Happy; those who are staying and those who will be chosen--Make A Difference; and those 'unemployed' (meaning they're not chosen)--Be A Guardian Angel.

Then, it's time to choose and vote for the new committee. Many potential candidates were being nominated by members and chosen based on the majority. And here are the chosen ones:

Chairman: Kelvin Wong Zhi Xiong

Vice Chairman: Kyle Tan Guang Pin

Secretary: Melissa Joy Benedict

Asst Secretary: Chuah Chang En (Alexson)

Treasurer: Pua Kai Ning (Evelyn)

Asst Treasurer: Florencetina Chew Yu May

Prayer Coordinator: Ray Leong Swee Fung

Word Coordinator: Tiong Ngee Derk

Worship Coordinator: Wendy Lee Yau Wei

Logistic Manager: Lee Kao Meng

Fellowship Manager: Shirley Kwong Chee Ai

Mission and Outreach Manager: Tan Sui Yen

Publicity and Sales Manager: Calvin Nanthan

Everyone then started approaching them to congratulate them and give them word of encouragement. Later, Eric Ong (who has led the CF for 2 years) prayed for them and also drew the meeting to an end with a closing prayer. The new committee has its first exco meeting shortly after that and then, just like last year, we went Ghany for yum cha session. Our advisors Mr & Mrs Kuek joined us as well.

Though I may not be chosen, I'm satisfied cos it may not be necessary to be part of the committee to serve the Lord. As long as I can serve and worship the Lord, I'm fine with it. And for the past 2 terms (since I joined CF) plus the coming one, there are 4 people who remain in the committee as far as I can recall. They are Kelvin Wong, Calvin Nanthan, Sui Yen and Shirley Kwong.

I'm in the same group with Calvin (left), Sui Yen (2nd left) and Kelvin Wong (2nd right) during the telematch held 2 years ago when we first joined CF. That's how I met the 3 of them. Thanks for being my friends, u all are indeed awesome.

To the current committee members, I hope that u all can do your best to serve God and lead the CF well. I will give my fullest support to the 13 of u. May God be with you always in everything u do.

CGBC Burger Nite

2010-04-13T14:29:00.005+08:00

A great night indeed! Everyone's having fun making their own burgers and hotdogs!

This is the last week of the cell group and Campus Connect decided to have a Burger Nite for the last meeting of this trimester. The event was supposed to start at 7pm but it's raining around 6pm. The cell leaders said it would be postponed to the next day (today) if the rain doesn't stop at 6.30pm. Miraculously, it stopped exactly at that time, allowing the event to be taken place. Praise the Lord!

I went there early to help setting up the place. Several members were already there to help out as well. When everything was settled, it's time to make burgers. A lot of things were prepared: burger buns, chicken and beef patties, cheese, eggs, mayonnaise etc. And members used their creativity to produce all sorts of burgers. Some people even had the chance to enjoy frying fries. Due to limited numbers of stoves, members had to wait patiently for their turns.

After making the burgers, members sat down and enjoyed their own hand-made burgers. Then, everyone started talking to one another and had lots of fun there. Some people even went on to make some more burgers, myself inclusive.

Then, some people started leaving while some stayed back to clean up the place. And after some time, the place is back to normal again. Some members even spent some time interacting and fellowshipping with one another before everyone went home.

Mmm... it's tasty!!

From left: Kai Jun, Koon Eu and Isaac Chay

End of Week 12

2010-04-10T16:38:00.003+08:00

Just 2 more weeks and this trimester will come to an end.

Exam timetable and bar list were out this week. I have 5 papers in 9 days (exam timetable on the right). And I'm safe and eligible to sir for the final exam as I keep a clean sheet on the bar list i.e my name isn't listed. But several of my coursemates and juniors were barred from a few subjects. Really kesian them lah.... but some of my friends managed to get themselves unbarred. Anyway, I wish them luck in the final exam.

CF has its last Bible study of the whole trimester on Tuesday. And for the next week, it's AGM where new committee will be chosen. Some committee memhers are stepping down and passing the baton to other members. Who will be chosen as the new committee? Answers will be revealed in the next CF meeting. Then on the final week, it's the installation of the new committee.

I have done my 5th presentation on my L.Learning group assignment. And overall, it was a bad one I can say cos our presentation was not clear in the area of content. Our lecturer said it was quite confusing and pointed out where we've made mistakes. Anyway it's good to learn from mistakes. Also, the Mass Media group assignment was handed in yesterday, leaving us with one more assignment - writing lesson plan (L.Teaching) - and 2 more presentations.

Sometimes, I wonder why the world is unfair, especially to we EL students. Students from other courses have settled all their assignments, presentations and exams weeks before the final exam, while we have to deal with all these from the beginnning until the end of the trimester. It isn't the 1st time we face such situations, our previous trimesters are also similar. The workload begins to ease off towards the end of the trimester, giving us more time to study for the final exam. However, I personally feel that this is unfair to us compared to other students.

Beautiful Gate visitation

2010-04-10T15:11:00.006+08:00

This morning, several CF members visit Beautiful Gate in Kampar. Beautiful Gate is a home for the disabled people. About 10 of us gather at the bus stop opposite the basketball court in WestLake as was told by Gin. We set off and arrive there shortly as the place isn't too far away.

We bring along some recyclable items such as newspapers and aluminium cans for recycling purposes. Then, we head into the house and Gin gets everyone in the house to participate in an ice-breaking session. A few simple games are played and I can say everyone - both the CF members and the disable people - enjoy having fun together.

After having some fun, it's time for us to fulfill our purpose of being there: helping to clean the house. Tasks like sweeping and mopping the floor and wiping the fans are distributed among the CF members. Everyone plays their part well in helping out and getting the job done. We have a brief photo-taking session before we leave to have our lunch at KFC in Tesco. The residents thank us for coming and tell us that we can visit them sometimes.

This is my 2nd visit to the home; the first time was 2 years ago when I joined Campus Connect in the S+URGE camp. It was part of the outreach activities of the camp. We dropped by there to help out with spring-cleaning before we departed to Harvest Haven, Gopeng for the rest of the activities. Wow.... the place has changed a lot since my 1st visit. There are study rooms, office, classrooms and also a computer room. A large signboard is placed in front of the house as shown in the picture below:

Visitation to Beautiful Gate has made me realised that I'm more fortunate than the residents there. I hope they will be blessed through our visit.

James 1:19

2010-04-07T14:15:00.005+08:00

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You all must be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry.

~New Living Translation

Victory in Christ, God with us

2010-04-04T16:23:00.004+08:00

That's the theme for the Easter Musical held in CGBC Ipoh recently. I totally agree with the significance of the theme as Easter is the celebration of resurrection of Christ.

There were two nights: 8pm (Friday) and 7.30pm (Saturday). I missed the first one but attended the second night. It was indeed an awesome night as the youths have put up an egg-citing performance (forgot to mention that the first night was for adults while the second for youths). There's a choir singing hymns at the beginning, followed by a sketch where a father showed his son the the true meaning of Easter. There's dance performace by several teenage girls. Wow.... their dance moves really impressed me as if they're talented ballet dancers.

Later, a brother shared his testimony about his addiction to pornography and how he managed to get rid of the addiction. He even composed a song to demonstrate his love to the Lord. There's 2 more sing presentations: the first one was by a brother and in the second, several brothers and sisters carried a few banners and waved them during the whole presentation. And there's one banner that has Christ is Risen written on it. Amen!

Then, Bro Jospeh Raj took over the stage to share his sermon of the night. Bro Joseph's sermon was mainly about Easter and the resurrection of Christ. In his sermon, He discussed about the relationship of Jesus and Peter, one of his 12 disciples. He also said that the message conveyed from the sketch and the testimony was quite clear i.e Christ is risen. At the end of his sermon, Bro Joseph shared a testimony. His testimony was how the family of one of his coursemates accepted Christ. The father of that coursemate passed away due to cancer several weeks after becoming a Christian while the mother was baptised during Christmas last year. And that coursemate is actually his wife who was interpreting his sermon to Mandarin that night (FYI his wife is a Chinese).

The night ended with Bro Joseph praying for several brave souls who wanted to accept Jesus Christ into their life. While he's doing so, some people started leaving the place, including me & my parents. Actually, I wanted to talk to Bro Joseph since we haven't seen each other since the Amazing Race camp but my dad wanted to leave earlier to avoid traffic congestion. But never mind, I can always keep in touch with him.

End of Week 11

2010-04-03T15:01:00.002+08:00

It's the end of week 11 and I'm back in my hometown to celebrate Easter with my family.

I returned to CC Monday cell and CF this week after skipping a few times because of assignments, tests and presentations. Now I'm not so busy compared to previous packed weeks. I can take some time to relax myself for the remaining weeks. Of course, I have 2 more assignments and presentations that I need to work on. And the final exam is getting closer.

There's worship all day long during CF this week and they planned to celebrate Easter but didn't at the end. Campus Connect also had Easter celebration as well but there isn't any sketches this time, unlike last year where I was part of the Easter drama cast. Sis Shirley presented a song while Ps Chan shared his message on ressurection of Christ. In conjunction with Easter Day, CGBC Ipoh is having Easter Musical for 2 days, yesterday and today. I have missed yesterday's session and hope that I can go tonight.

Good Friday

2010-04-02T21:55:00.004+08:00

Today's Good Friday and it's the day of crufication of Jesus Christ. And on Sunday, it's Easter Day which marked the Resurrection of Christ. Usually, Easter is associated with Easter Bunny and Easter eggs.

And right at the moment, CGBC Ipoh is having an Easter Musical tonight but I decided not to go cos I'm tired of travelling from Kampar to Ipoh. But not to worry, there's another session tomorrow night at 7.30pm. And the speakers for both nights are Pastor Leroy Ng and Bro Joseph Raj. I have not met Pastor Leroy personally but he has preached at Emmanuel AOG Ipoh (my home church) a few times. As for Bro Joseph, I met him through The Amazing Race camp organised by Campus Connect last year. I hope I can attend tomorrow's session and have a great time there.

Happy Easter and have a blessed Holy Week everyone!

I See Grace

2010-03-31T18:48:00.005+08:00

Verse 1
Jesus my help, I call out Your name
I cast my cares to You
Jesus my hope, my tower of strength
My faith is found in You

Pre-Chorus
I see You pierced, wounded for me
When I look at the cross I see

Chorus
I see grace, sealed by Your sacrifice
I see love reaching for me
Precious blood washes and sanctifies
Healing flows, setting me free
I see grace

Verse 2
Bearer of sin, afflicted and tried
You paid redemption's price
Rearing my curse, You set me on high
Your death has brought me life

I Give My Life to the Potter's Hand

2010-03-31T18:36:00.004+08:00

Beautiful Lord, wonderful Saviour
I know for sure all of my days
Are held in Your hand
Crafted into Your perfect plan

You gently call me into Your presence
Guiding me by Your Holy Spirit
Teach me dear Lord to live all of my life
Through Your eyes

I'm captured by Your holy calling
Set me apart
I know you're drawing me to Yourself
Lead me Lord I pray

Chorus
Take me, mould me, use me, fill me
I give my life to the Potter's hand
Call me, guide me, lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to the Potter's hand

How Could I Live Without You

2010-03-31T18:22:00.005+08:00

How could I live without You
How could I survive
Without Your love
Without Your touch
You're the One who heals me
And cleanses my heart
And set me free

Now I come right before You
With my hands lifted up
With my heart humbly bowed
At Your work on the cross
As You hung there and died
You were paying the price
For my life, for my life

For Your love is higher than the heavens
Deeper than the seas
And all I want is You in my life
No one else can satisfy my soul
Can make me feel this way
Only You Lord, only You

I Simply Live For You

2010-03-31T02:15:00.004+08:00

Say the word and I will sing for you
Over oceans deep I wiil follow
If each star was a song
And every breath of wind, praise
It would be still fail by far to say
All my hearts contains
I simply live, I simply live for you

Chorus
As the glory of your presence
Now fills this place
In worship we will meet you face to face
There is nothing in this world
To which You can be compared
Glory on glory, praise upon praise
You bind the broken-hearted
And save all my tears
By Your word You set the captives free
There is nothing in this world
That you cannot do
I simply live, I simply live for you

All-time worship and praises

2010-03-31T01:53:00.002+08:00

The title says it all for this week's CF meeting! For the whole meeting, we're singing praises unto the Lord God Almighty.

I returned to CF after missing 3 previous meetings. And this time, it's filled with worship and praises throughout the session. Shirley and Jensen were the worship leaders with Kelvin, Kyle, Renjie and Calvin as musicians. Shirley and Jensen took turns to lead the members into singing a few Christian hymns and among the songs were I See Grace, Still, So You Would Come, Potter's Hand etc. Jensen sometimes read some scriptures during the session whenever he took over.

There's prayer sessions before, during and after the meeting. Committee members were seen praying for other members. Also, some members helped to wash others' feet and later prayed for them. Later, everyone adjourned to the 1st floor to have light refreshment. And some members were hungry as they have been fasting since morning. During this time, members mingle-mingle around, chatting with other members. Some people helped clean up the place before leaving. Afterwards, they went yum cha before parting their own ways.

End of Week 10

2010-03-27T15:40:00.003+08:00

Wow.... another week breezed past just like that! 4 more weeks before the final exam... and I know my exam dates but don't know which subject on which day.

I have done 4th presentation this week for Socio group assignment and handed in the assignment on Friday. Besides, the Language Learning assignment was handed in as well. And we have to do our presentation in week 12 and my group is the 2nd in order. So there won't be any delay this time, unless the lecturer won't be around which I think unlikely to happen.

I also received my LLT midterm results and I scored the lowest among my coursemates. Oh dear! I didn't perform well in the Language Teaching Quiz 2 as well. Blame myself for not doing suffficient revision for both subjects. Perhaps I can rectify this by faring well in the final exam.

Didn't go to CC cell and CF this week as I was spending my time completing my assignments and doing revision. The discipleship training ended last week and this week was Movie Night @ Campus Connect. Facing the Giants was on display and I have watched the movie before during CF last year. So I decided not to go this time to give me more time to complete the tasks in hand. Also I have skipped CF for 3rd consecutive time, this week is Bible study week.

There's a debate competition organised by the ELS society this week. Lots of exciting debates took place and EL Y1S3 students edged their Y2S3 seniors to win the competition. (Pls refer to the post ELS debate competition for more details.)

As for today, EL Y1S3 students had their Moral campaign this morning. It was indeed a graceful event and my juniors have done excellent works in making the event a success. Well done once again! And Earth Hour 2010 is taking place today from 8.30-9.30pm. My dear readers, pls switch off all the lights and electrical appliances in

your households during this period. Thanks for your co-operation.

For the Love of Moral

2010-03-27T14:43:00.010+08:00

A wonderfully done Moral campaign by the students of EL Y2S1! You all did an excellent job!

This morning, my fellow EL juniors have organised a campaign for the Moral subject as requested by their lecturer Mr Muthu. The event started at 10.30am but I have a replacement class at the moment. So right after the class ends, I headed to Block E where the campaign is held. And my juniors were taking a break when I reached there.

There were sketches, press conference, dance performances, debate etc during the 3-hour campaign. I only witnessed the sketches performed by 2 groups and also the press conference. Also a slideshow of pictures showing Behind the Scene of the campaign. The rest I have missed cos I was in Ms Mok's replacement lecture in Block H. But I managed to find out what happened from my juniors.

Closing ceremony of the Moral campaign

EL Y2S1 students with their Moral lecturer Mr Muthu

1st row: (L-R): Liza Kuan, Wen Xin, Sharmilla, Kyle, Daryl, Dante, Cheryl, Jojo
2nd row (L-R): Stippie, Amber, Song Moi, Sze Wan, Aubrey, Kai Fu, Brian, Sheena
3nd row (L-R): Hui Xin, Wai Yeng, Rajina, Sooi Pheng, Leeza, Gale, Nelson, Jen May

These are the students involved in the campaign (each of them holding a sign saying Love Yourself in 4 different languages - Mandarin, Malay, English & Tamil)

And because of their awesome performance, Mr Muthu decided to give them full marks for the campaign. Well done, everyone! U all deserve it for all your efforts put into the campaign!

ELS Debate Compettition

2010-03-26T20:27:00.009+08:00

Fuh... finally the debate has drawn its curtains today with EL Y1S3 students edging their Y2S3 seniors to win the competition, with Timothy Kok emerged as the best speaker of the final match.

The whole competition organised by the English Language Society saw the participation of 5 teams, all from the English Language course. Why isn't any other teams from other courses? Perhaps this is because other students are busy with their assignments, presentations and exams. So the EL students had no choice but to take part in the competition.

The competition took place for 3 days - Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (today). On Tuesday, there were 2 preliminaries rounds with Y2S3 batch facing their Y3S1 seniors in one match and Y2S1 against Y1S3 in another.

In the first match, the debate topic was Only one spouse is allowed to work outside the home. The Y2S3 batch, represented by Yin Mun, Winna Lau & Samantha Yung, were the affirmative team while Hui Ching, Shu Ern & Visha were on the opposing side. The affirmative team won the debate and advanced to the next round with Samantha as the best speaker.

The topic for the Y1S3 vs Y2S1 match was Same sex schools are better than co-ed schools. Y2S1, represented by Cheryl, Dante and Sze Wan, were the affrimatives while their Y1S3 juniors of Timothy Kok, Ngee Derk & Wai Leng were the oppositions. Y1S3 won the round but Cheryl was announced as the best speaker.

Off to the semi-final of the competition on Wednesday. It's between Y2S3 batch and their Y1S1 juniors. The motion of the debate was Same sex marriages should be legalised. Calvin Nanthan, Kim Soon and Sanjay Ramani represented Y1S1 while Y2S3 was fielding Samantha, Winna and Yin Mun. The girls won the debate and advanced into the final with Samantha was the best speaker again.

After a day rest, the competition continues with the final between Y2S3 and Y1S3 today. The topic of the day is Death penalty should be abolished with Y2S3 taking the affirmative side. It is an interesting and lively between the two teams. However, the girls lost to their juniors due to flaws in their arguments. And Timothy Kok won the best speaker award. Prizes were given to both teams and tokens of appreciation were given to the judges as well.

Before the start of the debate

Winna (standing) giving her points during the debate

Participants of both teams posing for group photos after the debate (from left): Winna, Yin Mun, Samantha, Yao Jia, Timothy, Ngee Derk & Wai Leng

Overall, this event was indeed a great success. The organising chairperson Stippie Chee and his team have put in all their efforts for this meaningful event. Also well done to all the participants who took part and did well in the competition.

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) - Chris Tomlin

2010-03-26T00:07:00.004+08:00

Verse 1
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saves a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I'm found
Was blind but now I see

Verse 2
'Twas grace that taught me heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

Chorus
My chains are gone, I've been set free
My God, my Saviour has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy rains
Unending love, amazing grace

Verse 3
The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures

Verse 4
The earth shall soon dissolves like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God who called me here below
Will be forever mine
Will be forever mine
You are forever mine

Postponed.... AGAIN

2010-03-22T21:07:00.002+08:00

Another presentation postponed.... again! This is the 4th time that I have my presentation delayed from the actual date.

Today, we're supposed to have our presentation on Sociolinguistics group assignment. 7 groups in total and only 5 managed to present in both lectures. And my group, unfortunately, is the 6th. So no choice but to have our presentation the next day (tomorrow).

My 3 previous presentations were also rescheduled to another day or week due to unforeseen circumstances. 1st one is the HoEL chapter review presentation. My group was actually scheduled to present in the 4th week but we couldn't get the materials in time. So we had our presentation on week 7 instead. But I was totally unprepared for the presentation.

The second presentation is my Mass Media individual presentation. After drawing lots during the second week, I'm supposed to do my presentation on week 5. But CNY falls in that week as well and all classes throughout the week were cancelled and replaced in later weeks. Our lecturer Ms Mok decided to postpone the presentation to the 7th week. Then during week 6, she told us that she won't be around on Mon the following week and the tutorial was replaced in week 8 instead. So Steffy, Nisha, Hannah and me had another week to prepare. In the end, on that day itself, only 3 presented and Hannah had hers the next day.

As for the 3rd one, HoEL assignment presentation last week, I prepared the slides for the whole assignment the day before our presentation. I was prepared but not the girls. They thought that they're presenting during tutorial but it was supposed to be during lecture according to the order decided earlier. Anyway, we had our presentation the next day. And I seriously need to polish up my presentation skills as my speech is not fluent and sometimes I'm lost of words.

With this Socio presentation included, so far I have all my presentation delayed. There's 2 more in the following weeks for Mass Media and Language Learning group assignments. I hope that I get to do my presentation on the actual date and not to be delayed or postponed.

End of Week 9

2010-03-20T14:01:00.002+08:00

Fuh... another week gone! 5 more week remaining before the finals.

I had 1 presentation done, 1 assignment handed in and one midterm test this week. Let's talk about the LT assignment first. Over the last weekend, Eugene & I contacted each other to find out how's each other's progress. Apparently, the assignment was quite an easy one. We started late but managed to finish in time. On Monday (the day we're supposed to hand in the assignment), Geetha, the girl in our group, appeared. She didn't contribute anything at all to the assignment but we had to insert her name on the assignment cover, if not she'll not get any marks for the assignment.

My group was supposed to present our HoEL assignment on Monday, but it was delayed to the next day cos the 2 girls were not prepared. I have completed the slides and sent to the girls on Sunday but it turned out that I was too hardworking that I did the slides of their part as well. One of the girls asked if I wanna add any extra information to my part cos the number of slides of my part was lesser than theirs. I dunno what to do as I was preparing to go to Campus Connect cell group when Hannah contacted me. While I'm still deciding, PC invited me to attend cell group first (at least worship) before I made my decision. I couldn't pay my full attention to the activities there and decided to go and have a rest. I didn't do anything extra and presented my part on the next day. But the girls arrived late b'cos they had trouble printing out the slides.

As for the Language Learning midterm, I didn't do well due to insufficient revision. Perhaps, this was due to my poor time management. I slept late not b'cos of burning the midnight oil but onlining. And I tend to wake up late when I sleep late. I was totally blank when I received the question paper. I was scratching my head for answers while everyone else was busy writing. But Mr Soh was kind enough that he offered me a second chance to sit for the midterm again on week 11. Gotta use this chance wisely to perform better.

Didn't attend CF this week cos my scooter gave me problem when I wanna leave for dinner. My scooter couldn't start at all, I tried igniting the engine but all my efforts were in vain. I was tired and hungry at that time. In the end, I've decided not to go for the forgiveness talk by Dr Herbert Tan and ordered food delivery. I sent my scootie for service and apparently the problem was caused by the battery. Battery's changed and it's good to have my scooter back. (CF people, now u know why I didn't come this time)

OK, I gotta go now cos need to work on my assignments which are due next week.

It's all about friendship

2010-03-14T23:56:00.010+08:00

It us undeniable that we need friendship while we're here on this earth. We need to build and develop friendship with other people. Friends can help us in many ways. They offer help and advice we need them. They share our joy and despair. They give us support all the time in everything we do. They even pinpoint our mistakes as they can while we ourselves can't.

In the recent Bible study session, we studied about friendship. No doubt it is vital to develop friendship with other people as they help us along the way. Rev Yong asked us to list out features and characteristics of true friendship. Then we referred to the Bible to discover what the Word of God has to say about friendship. As we looked at some scriptures given, we found that God see friendship in a different way. Here are some of the scriptures:

Proverbs 17:17 (NLT)
A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.

Proverbs 18:24 (NLT)
There are "friends" who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 27: 6, 9 (NLT)
Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.

John 15: 13 (NIV)
Greater love has no one than this; that he lays down his life for his friends.

Matthew 5: 3-10 (NIV)
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thrist for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteuosness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Romans 12: 9-18 (NLT)
Don't just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honouring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. When God's people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practise hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Don't curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don't be proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don't think you know it all! Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a waythat everyone can you are honourable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

Ephesians 4: 32 (NKJV)
And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Wow, I have learnt a lot about friendship through this Bible study. Hope these verses can help me in delevoping and maintaining friendship with others. And I feel blessed with the bunch of friends that I've befriended ever since I came to Kampar. To me, they're like my family and we always have fellowship with one another. The CF is like a big family to me, having fellowship and fun together with them is indeed enjoyable and memorable. The same goes with my EL coursemates and also Campus Connect members. The Lord have indeed blessed me abundantly with their presence that fill my life with colours. Thank you people! And may our friendships last forever!

End of Week 8

2010-03-13T12:59:00.002+08:00

Whoa... just 6 more weeks to go! Time really flies!

This week, I have handed in one assignment and supposed to hand in another but Mr Renu was kind enough to extend the deadline to Monday. He helped us with our 2nd assignment - writing aims and objectives for lessons. I started this assignment quite late, only to begin early this week. I thought of doing the assignment alone but managed to pair up with Eugene. Actually, there's another girl in our group but since she didn't show herself these few days, we decided to do the assignment without her.

My HoEL group assignment is done and handed in on Monday. But sad to say, I didn't contribute much to the assignment. And because of this, my group mates were furious at me. It turns out that this is the 1st (and last) time I work with Hannah & Helena. Sigh! But this is going to be over after our article review presentation next Monday.

Oh, I had my MMS presentation on Monday as well. I chose to present on the topic Is the Internet a New Medium for Violence? My presentation wasn't fluent and sometimes my voice was little bit low. I gotta polish up my public speaking skills. But I wasn't nervous at all during my presentation. Speaking about the topic, it was interesting as I discussed about the reasons why the Internet is and is not a new medium for violence. And I discovered something: the Sept 11 attacks were actually planned by the terrorists using the Internet.

No CF meeting this week as the CF decided to give the members a break and more time to do their assignments and prepare for their presentations and exams. But CF will be back next week.

I'll be getting busier with my assignments and exams for the next few weeks. So catch ya'll next time! And all the best in your assignments, exams & presentations, my fellow readers!

Breathe On Me

2010-03-11T22:48:00.004+08:00

Verse 1
Breathe on me breath of God
Love and life that makes me free
Breathe on me breath of God
Fan the flame within me

Chorus
Teach my heart, heal my soul
Speak the mind that in Christ we know
Take me to Your sanctuary
Breathe on me

Verse 2
Speak to me voice of God
Soft and still inside my heart
Speak to me Word of God
Comfort, heal, restore with love

MMS Presentation done...

2010-03-08T18:33:00.004+08:00

... but it ain't over yet! I still have lots of assignments to do and another presentation coming next week. It's for the just completed HoEL article review assignment.

I had my MMS individual presentation done this morning. My topic was Is the Internet a new medium for violence? I discussed the topic from two points of view, one agreeing and another disagreeing with the statement. And I even expressed my opinion regarding this topic. 4 persons (including me) were supposed to present but only 3 managed to do so cos the lecturer came late.

Speaking about the just concluded HoEL assignment, I admit that I didn't really do my part well as a team player. I didn't ask my group mates about it and didn't contribute much to the assignment. They have the right to get mad and put the blame on me. I had a sleepless night the previous day, I did a bad task in doing the conclusion for the whole article review. As a result, Hannah has to spend the whole night without sleep just to edit and edit again. Anyway, I'm glad that the assignment is finally done. But I owe both girls an apology for not really getting involved in the assigment or our chapter review presentation. We have another presentation coming up next week and I hope I can rectify my mistakes this time.

Another thing is that sometimes I am ignorant about certain things and this serves as a good example. Seriously, I need to change my attitude and perspectives of seeing things. I cannot continue acting this way, if not people would have a bad impression on me. Time for reflection.

HoEL midterm test tmr morning, gotta start doing revision already. There are other assignments to be done as well, esp Language Teaching 2nd assignment. It's due this week but I haven't start work. Gotta use and plan my time wisely.

End of Week 7

2010-03-06T15:16:00.003+08:00

Wow... half of the trimester gone just like that! And it's my 1st post for this month since I have not updated my blog for one week. Yes, I'm getting busier as everyone else does, working on assignments and presentations.

Ah, I have finally handed in my 1st Sociolinguistics assignment. I have been cracking my head for days to complete the assignment, trying to understand the article that I have chosen for the assignment. Boy, the article was a little tough for me to understand that I couldn't get the whole article is about when reading it for the first few times. But still I struggled to get the job done and handed in two days ago.

While keeping my focus on the Socio assignment, I didn't discuss the HoEL assignment with my group mates. During the last weekend, I was supposed to work the Socio and this assignment as well. But I squandered away the precious time and didn't contact them for discussion. It's my fault, I admit that I was a little ignorant regarding this matter. I didn't even know that our presentation was on Monday until they told me. I wasn't prepared at all for the presentation due to insufficient time. Hannah worked on the assignment draft while Helena did the slides. I felt guilty cos I didn't get myself involved. I'm really sorry, girls. And until now, our group has not submitted the assigment yet. Hope we can get it done ASAP.

And this week, I have skipped CC cell group, CF and a few classes just to concentrate on my assignments. I had a Language Teaching quiz on Wednesday and I had to miss the CF BGR & PDA talk by Bro Jason Fong on Tues just to revise for the quiz.

Just had replacement lecture for MMS this morning. And this is to replace our lecture which fell on Prophet Mohamad's birthday. Now, I'm still wondering whether all of the classes during the CNY week have been replaced.

Okay, I need to do preparation for my MMS individual presentation next Monday. It was originally scheduled that I were to present during Week 5 but that week was CNY break, so rescheduled to Week 7 (this week). But then, Ms Mok gave us notice that she won't be around that day and decided to postpone the presentation for another week. That's all I wanna share this time. ~END~

Holiday..... NOT!!

2010-02-26T14:16:00.008+08:00

It's public holiday today (Prophet Muhamad's birthday).Time for me to take a break from my studies and relax. NO WAIT! I still need to work on my assignments as 2 assignments need to be submitted next week. And I HAVEN'T started doing them. Oh no! Better start doing and completing them ASAP as I have other things to do as well.

No classes today since it's public holiday. And CBGC 3-day Mission Camp begins today. Only a few are going this time while the rest unable to make it cos busy with their assignments. At first, I thought of joining this camp but due to the fact that I need to make preparation for 2 presentations right after the camp, I gave up the chance.

Now one presentation (MMS) postponed as the lecturer won't be around next week. As for the other, I'm not so sure cos this presentation (HoEL) does not contribute any marks in our coursework, unlike the MMS one. But most probably, I won't be wasting my time on something which doesn't worth my efforts.

Campus Connect has its CNY celebration on Monday and lots of ppl turned up. It's good to have fellowship with one another again after everyone's away for one week. Discipleship training resumes next week. Also CF resumes with BIble study this week. Next week, something special's on--BGR (Boy-Girl Relationship) & PDA (Personal Display of Affection) workshop.

Just submitted my Language Teaching Assignment 1 yesterday and another assignment came in. We're given 2 weeks to complete the 2nd assignment. Discussion on the Language Learning Theory assignment going on during lecture and tutorial (though I didn't go for the lecture cos need to rush my LT asgnmt). Boy, my group seriously need to catch up with other groups as we're quite left behind. Others have done their questionnaires while we're still scratching our heads to think about the questions. Gotta speed up our progress!

Okay, that's all I wanna share abt happenings of this week.

Campus CNY Celebration

2010-02-24T14:30:00.002+08:00

What an wonderful CNY celebration indeed! Great time we had there celebrating CNY @ Campus Connect 2 night ago. There's food, games, testimony... the event was indeed a great success. Well done to the organisers - Alex, Jialing, Richard & Patty.

Before the celebration began, it's raining heavily outside. I guess the Lord is showering us with blessings from above. Alex was the chairperson for the night and he welcomed everyone who was present. Then, Richard & Jessie stepped in for games and songs respectively. We were divided into 4 groups and played two games. Then Jessie led everyone to singing two common CNY songs before going into the worship session. Then, sharing of testimony by Mun Yee and Alex himself. Then PC shared a short message based on the theme of the night -- man (which means full or abundance). Then refreshment time. There's a variety of food there.... cookies, dried meat (bak gua). Some members even took part in tossing the yee sang.

F3 CNY Gathering

2010-02-19T17:23:00.008+08:00

On Feb 17, F3 gang had another Gathering, just one month after the New Year 2010 Gathering. This time around, we planned to meet at Michelangelo's Pizzeria, a restaurant located behind PC Depot near Tesco Ipoh. When I got there, I met up with some of my classmates in front of the pizza restaurant. But we had to switch venue cos according to my friend, the restaurant only allowed us to be in there for 45 minutes only. So no choice but to change to Station One Cafe (opposite Yeolde English).

We reached there, ordered our food and started chatting while waiting for the food and drinks to arrive. And while waiting, I met Grace (my EL coursemate) who was leaving the place with her friends after having fellowship. We chatted for a while before she made a move. Then, more and more F3 members turned up. Sin Fei and Chee Yen brought their girlfriends, Jennifer and Chooi Yee, along to join us. Our food came and we enjoyed dining there. Before we left the place, a brief group photo sesssion took place. My brother came to pick me up while the rest went to Peggy's house for further fellowship.

Gathering at Station One Cafe

Sitting (from left): Poh Onn, me, Wee Siong, Yik Keong, Jia Zun, Chooi Heng

Standing (from left): Juan Yih, Peggy, Millie, Chooi Yee, Chee Yen, Sin Fei, Jennifer, Eu JIn, Kok Weng, Sophia, Alan

Gathering at Peggy's house

Back (L-R): Kai Fei, Jia Zun, Simon, lihjiun, Joey Lai, Kok Hong, Chee Yen

Centre (L-R): Gerald, Millie, Poh Onn, yelin, Evon, Chooi Yee

Front (L-R): Chooi Heng, Sophia, Alan, Wee Siong, Peggy

Till we meet again!

Dual celebration

2010-02-14T22:07:00.004+08:00

Today marks a very special day as both Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day fall on the same day. This doesn't occur every year as Valentine's Day is fixed on Feb 14 whereas Chinese New Year falls on different dates between January and February, depending on the lunar year. The last time these dual festivities happened was in the year 1953.

Every year, the Chinese community celebrate the Lunar New Year by gathering for reunion dinner on the eve, visiting relatives and friends, decorating houses with lanterns and other decorative items. Children would be happy and excited to receive ang pows (or red packets). Lion dances and dragon dances can also be seen during this time.

Love blossoms on this day as well as couples would spend their valuable time together. And as for the Chinese couples, it's double celebration for them. Some couples register their marriage while some tie the knot today. Some couples may have to think whether to celebrate CNY or Valentine first or both today. No matter what, love is all that matters.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices within the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

~1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV)

Here, I would wish all my readers again a blessed and prosperous Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine's Day! May the Year of Tiger would be a blissful year to everyone!

Back in Ipoh

2010-02-13T21:08:00.003+08:00

Wow... another week just breezed past! And I'm back in my hometown to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family and friends!

Yesterday night, my parents & brother came to pick me up at night after my MMS lecture. We had dinner before leaving Kampar and reached home around 10pm. On the same night, my relatives from KL were on their way visiting us. But due to some delay, they only arrived after midnight.

Today is the eve of CNY where families gather together to have reunion meal (lunch/dinner). In Chinese, this day is known as 除夕. So my cousin's & my families went over to the house of another relative of ours to have reunion lnecheon. We had fellowship with one another during and after the lunch. After that, my relatives from KL had to make a move to Sitiawan as my uncle's hometown is there. Then we parted our own way and went home.

CF had a joint CNY + Valentine celebration on Tuesday as both occasions fall on the same day that is tomorrow. All those were present enjoyed themselves very much (refer to my previous post for the highlights). And CF's off next week as everyone's having one-week CNY break. As for the rest of the week, nothing much happened though, just that everyone start heading back to their respective hometown as the week apporaches towards the end.

It's time to take a break from studies and enjoy celebrating the festive period with our loved ones. So here I would like to wish all my readers a blessed Chinese New Year & Happy Valentine's Day! May the Year of Tiger would bring joy, love, peace & happiness to each and every one of us! 恭喜发财! 万事如意! 新年蒙福!

CF CNY + Valentine celebration

2010-02-10T01:16:00.010+08:00

A great time to celebrate both occasions at the same time indeed.... though the actual day of both Chinese New Year & Valentine's Day fall on this coming Sunday.

About 30 ppl attended this week's CF special meeting and I can say everyone enjoyed every single moment of the whole meeting. The foundation students were not present as they have just finished their final exams and have returned to their respective hometowns. I arrived at Wesley Church around 8pm and not many ppl were there yet. The worship team was rehearsing when I entered the meeting room. Jensen was the leader with Daniel (guitar), Calvin (drums) & Renjie (keyboard) made up the music team.

The meeting started around 8.30pm. Ah Derk, as the chairperson, welcomed everyone and started with a prayer before Jensen & team took over. He led the members to three Christian hymns before handing over to Guan Heng for the famous CNY song, Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Ni. The 1st verse and the chorus were exactly the same lyrics but only the next verses were being modified.

The night continued with Renjie bossing the members around (this is her 2nd time after the Leadership Workshop last year). First, she asked us to proceed to the ground floor to look for Shu Ern and get a mandarin orange from her. Then, after receiving the orange, we have to write our contact number on it. Everyone gathered in a circle and with eyes closed, they have to pass the orange around. While the pass was going on, the committee members interrupted the process by swapping the oranges. The passing eventually stopped after some time and the next thing to do was to find the owner of the number written on the orange in hand. The search began and everyone started going around, asking whose number it is. Some managed to locate the owner of the number while some failed. I managed to find out that the number on the mandarin orange I'm holding belonged to my EL senior Crystal.

Everyone gathered in a circle again to be divided into 4 groups. After having done that, now they're waiting for further instructions from Renjie and Shu Ern. Then every group has to send two representatives for the next activity: stuffing oranges. Oh my goodness! I was one of the chosen two from my group. Here's how the game goes: the other members have to stuff certain slices of (peeled) mandarin oranges into the mouths of the 2 chosen persons where they have to say certain words after the oranges were inserted. Several rounds were played. At first, I didn't experience any difficulties but as the slices increased and at the final round, my mouth isn't big enough to fit in all the oranges. Later, everyone feasted on the oranges.

The next activity was quite interesting and fun as well. Every group has to come up with a clan name (or surname of the family) and appoint a head of the family. Each group received a red-coloured paper (usually used for calligraphy), some ink and few pieces of small love-shaped cards. Then the head of the family (grandfather in this case) has to decide their 3-tier family tree. The next step was that everyone in the family has to write CNY & Valentine wishes to their younger generation i.e grandpa to grandma, grandma to children, husband to wife, wife to her children etc. The grandchildren however have to address their wishes to their elders. After this was done, now the families have to write their greetings to another family on the red paper and later present to the family. The purpose of this activity was to enhance family love and relationships.

This is one of the greetings presented to the Siao family. It means "smile always".

Rev Yong took over the pulpit after all the members have returned to the meeting room after the fun-filled activities. She shared about CNY, Valentine's Day, love and family relationships. Then, Eric Ong made some announcements. 1st, CF off next week as everyone won't be around during CNY. 2nd, Bible study resumes on Week 6. 3rd, Boy-Girl Relationship & Personal Display of Affection workshop on Week 7. Last but not least, the current CF committee are passing the baton at the end of this trimester. In other words, some committee members are stepping down. That means there will be new faces in the committee list in the next trimester.

Eric then closed the meeting with a word of prayer and the members proceeded to the 1st floor for some refreshment. Everyone had time interacting and fellowshipping with one another during that time. Some ppl even went yum cha.

Winna's birthday dinner

2010-02-09T15:45:00.004+08:00

What a wonderful dinner we had together yesterday night! We should dine together much more often.

Yesterday night around 7pm, 14 of us went to have dinner together at Restaurant Hong Hwai in New Town. Supposed we should be there around 6.30pm but a heavy rain held us back. Anyway, when I reached there, some coursemates were already there, including the birthday girl Winna. Her birthday was two days ago (but sorry no birthday cake, just a simple dinner). They've already placed their order and wanna add 1 or 2 dishes. After that, we started chit-chatting.

Then, the dishes came one by one. They looked and tasted delicious. Without delay, everyone started eating as they were hungry. Later, we had a brief photo-taking session and everyone started parting their ways after clearing the bill. The rest were heading home while Winna, Eugene & I went to church.

A simple dinner to bind our relationship even more closer.

End of Week 3

2010-02-06T16:31:00.004+08:00

11 more weeks to go!!

For this week, 1st CF meeting back in Wesley after away from the place for 2 weeks. It's Bible study session and this time we're studying the book of James. The material we got was sufficient for the whole year. And for next week, something special is on. It's CNY + Valentine celebration, wonder how the CF gonna celebrate the 2 festivals.

Also at Campus Connect, there's a talk given by Dr Daniel Tan on party drugs. Only a few ppl attended the talk though. And those who were there gained some information about different types of party drugs (only few were mentioned). CC is having its CNY celebration as well, on 22 Feb. Also there's a mission camp at the end of this month from 26-28Feb. Not sure whether to go yet.

There's something frustrating happened though to me (and my groupmates). I teamed up with 2 girls for HoEL presentation and we're supposed to do our presentation next week. And we have to get the materials from our lecturer Mr Mahalingam but we failed to do so. Hannah, Helena & I went to look for him separately a few times but he's not available every time they or I went there (he isn't around even when I went to consult him for academic advice--he's my academic advisor). I'm not sure whether he will backfire at us, saying that we didn't look for him throughout the week. Sadly, we didn't ask him even during his classes on Mon & Tue. And yesterday, his replacement classes were supposed to be on but he himself has gone to Penang. We got to know this only after Eugene gave him a call. Having not able to get the materials, the girls and I dunno what to do next. Even if we manage to get it on Mon, it would be insufficient time for us to prepare and present the next day. As quoted from Helena, "he is such a bad lecturer". But anyway, like the MLE presentations the previous trimester, this presentation doesn't carry any marks in our coursework. Not sure this is a boon or a bane. Other than that, nothing special happened throughout the week. Gotta go, bye!

Party drugs hazard talk

2010-02-03T23:16:00.004+08:00

I went for a talk on party drugs @ Campus Connect just now and gained knowledge from the talk conducted by Dr Daniel Tan. Whoa... it's indeed an eye-opener.

The crowd isn't big, just about 15 ppl. Still the show must go on. Dr Daniel explained about different types of party drugs and effects. Only a few were highlighted though, namely ecstasy pills, crystal meth ('Ice'), syabu, ketamine and rohypnol (the latter two can be used as date-rape drugs). Also, Dr Daniel provided some solutions to this problems. Then, Q & A session. Many questions were raised and Dr Daniel answered them well, allowing members of the floor to gain extra information from the talk.

Later, there's a birthday celebration for twins Shuyi & Shumin, who turned 21 today. A cake was bought from JusToEat for this celebration. It was exactly the same cake that Renjie had when the CF had a joint birthday celebration for Shirley Kwong & her last year. Besides them, my brother David's and my EL junior Daryl's birthday fall on the same day as well. Happy blessed birthday to the 4 of u! All the best to everyone esp Shuyi who's having her final exam at the moment.

We Are Family - Chipmunks & Chipettes

2010-02-02T18:57:00.019+08:00

We are family

Oh whoa whoa oa oa oa oa oh yeah yeah

We are family

Oh whoa oh yeah yeah yeah

Verse 1

(Oh) Everyone can see we're together

As we walk on by

(Yeah) And we fly just like birds of a feather

I won't tell no lie (oh oh)

(All) All of the people around us they say

Can we be that close (oh oh oh)

Just let me state for the record

(We're giving love)

We're giving love in a family dose

Chorus 1

We are family (Yeh yeh yeh)

I got all my sisters with me (Whoa-oh-oh)

We are family (Yeah yeeah)

Get up everybody and sing (Now sing it to me baby)

We are family (Yes we are)

I got all my brothers with me (I got my brothers with me)

We are family (Oh oh oh oh oh oh)

Get up everybody and sing (Sing it to me)

Verse 2

Living life is fun and we've just begun

To get our share of this world's delight

(High) High hopes we have

For the future

And our goal's in sight

(Ooooooooooh)

No we don't get depressed

Here's what we call our golden rule

Have faith in you and the things you do

You won't go wrong

This is our family jewel

Chorus 2

We are family (Yeh yeh yeh)

I got all my sisters with me (Whoa-oh-oh)

We are family (Yes we are)

Get up everybody and sing (I want you to sing it to me)

We are family (We be a family)

I got all my brothers with me (Got my brothers with me yeah)

We are family (Ooh but you don't know)

Get up everybody and sing (Sing sing baby now sing)

Bridge

We are family (x4)

Chorus 3

We are family (We be a family)

I got all my sisters with me (Whoa-oh-oh yeh yeh yeh)

We are family (Aaah oh)

Get up everybody and sing (Get up get up get up and sing)

(Whooooooooooa)

We are family (Oh we are a family)

I got all my brothers with me

(Got my brothers with me don't you know)

We are family (Aaah oh)

Get up everybody and sing (Get up get up baby baby sing)

Oh yeah, yeah yeah, ooooh

Legend

Pink - Brittany

Yellow - Jeanette & Eleanor

Purple - Chipettes (Brittany, Jeanette & Eleanor)

Red - Alvin

Orange - Simon & Theodore

Blue - Chipmunks (Alvin, Simon & Theodore)

Green - All (Chipettes & Chipmunks)

End of Week 2

2010-01-30T17:20:00.005+08:00

Phew... another week gone!

The main highlight of the week was the CF welcoming night on Tuesday. It took place at Grand Kampar Hotel and 10 churches around Kampar participated in the event organised by the UtarCF. The purpose was to introduce the churches in Kampar to the freshies who have just stepped into Utar for their studies. It was a great night for everyone who was there.

As for the rest of the week, nothing special happened throughout the week. Teaching and learning resumed. And we EL students started working on our assignments and preparing for presentations. Dates and order for the HOEL chapter review group (of 3) presentations have been decided. And my group has been scheduled to present on Week 4. Also, lecturers discussed abt finding replacement classes for CNY.

That's all to reflect on for this week. Adios! Oh and all the best to the Foundation students who are sitting for their final exam next week. God bless!!

I don't understand....

2010-01-27T21:34:00.002+08:00

Why? Why? Why?

Why the ICTC staff is so lazy? They don't even wanna come to help students/lecturers who experience problems with the LCD projectors despited being requested to do so. This afternoon, I have class in Block A as Block B (where most of my classes are in that block) is used as venues for final exams of the foundation students. The laptop and LCD projector are brought in for Mr Soh to conduct his lesson. At first, there's some problem with the projector. Everything's being set up but the projector couldn't detect anything. So Winna decided to go to the ICTC to ask for help from the staff there. But she returned to the FAS meeting room, alone, saying the staff refused to come. WTH!! Hello!! We're just one block away from where the department is located yet they don't want to take the trouble to even come and have a look. C'mon lah!! We're not in Block G or H or even I that u need to walk quite some distance to reach us. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WE'RE IN BLOCK A. Why the staff refuse to lend a helping hand?

I understand that any vehicles which enter into the campus compound require vehicle stickers, if not the security guards will stop the particular car or motorcycle from entering the university. But the latest rumour that I heard is that even bicycles need to have those stickers. Not sure whether it's true or not but this is another thing I don't understand. Why we need to have stickers on our bicycles? Is it probably that the number of bicycles around the campus are too much that the management need to control the amount? And bicycles found in inappropriate parking locations will be chained up. At first when I'm riding my scooter into the campus for the previous trimesters, I wonder why there's invasion of parking spaces by bicycles at the parking areas for motorcycles (in front of Block C). Now I realise that students do not want to walk too far away from their venues of class. Bicycles definitely outnumber the rest of vehicles greatly and the sad thing is that there isn't sufficient parking spaces available. Last time, bicycles are seen parked along the bicycle lane inside the campus but now this is not allowed anymore. And the parking area near Block D (not the one directly in front of the block) which is the supposed parking areas for bicycles is very soggy and muddy.

I just don't understand why there's so many unsatisfactory things happen within the campus. Sigh!

CF Welcoming Night 2010

2010-01-27T00:24:00.005+08:00

What an awesome night indeed!! Churches around Kampar gather together for this event organised by UtarCF. How good it is to see many fellow believers of Christ come for the event which purpose is to introduce the churches around Kampar to the freshies who just Utar this intake.

A total of 10 churches attended this event where 5 of them are listed in the brochure above, namely Wesley Methodist Church, Chinese Methodist Church, Gospel Hall, Praise Community Church and CGBC Campus Connect, who are the joint organisers.

I myself have reached GKH around 7pm. It was still early and there are some members who have just arrived. I chatted with them for a while. I even made 2 trips back to my own church to see if anyone's there as CGBC is just walking distance from the hotel. On the 2nd trip, some members arrived. When everyone's ready, we walked together to GKH.

We registered ourselves and received a freshies handbook before heading into the hall. Soon representatives from other churches started appearing and filling up the seats. Soon the event began with Jensen and Fiona were masters of ceremonies for the night. They welcomed everyone for being present there and handed over the time to Gale for some ice-breaking session. It doesn't what sort of game that we play, the most important thing is that everyone gather and have fun together.

Then it's back to MCs again where they released the members of the floor to have dinner before the night went on. During that time, all the people there had fellowship with one another, getting to know one another while enjoying the food prepared. It's good to see Shirley Kwong back among us again after she's away for her sister's wedding few days ago. Then after 30 minutes, everyone's back to their seats again, preparing for a time of worship. Wendy Lee led the worship with Shu as guitarist and Renjie on keyboard. Slideshows of CF activities and information about churches in Kampar were put up, then followed by speeches from Eric Ong and Mr K. Later everyone was dismissed after a closing prayer from Pastor Nicky Ling of PCC.

I didn't capture any photos for this event so pls kindly refer to this link: CF Freshies Welcoming Night