Monday, 21 September 2009
My 1st week in BMT :D
I'm in Jaguar company :D
I've got awesome bunkmates :) They're all cool and funny people :D I'm really thankful for bunkmates like them.
BUT, I've yet to fully open up myself to my bunkmates. Haha.
The 2 reasons I've not been totally open to them is because
- I myself am a bit careful about entirely being myself for fear of being judged.
- They are not all that accepting for whatever justification that they might have for doing so.
For those that know me, I'm the crappy, funny, animated, insightful, sincere, honest, argumentative and loving person. :D Whoa..so BHB. HAHA! My friends will vouch for me! Haha!
But to my bunkmates I think they think that I'm quite a tao guy that's not entirely serious bout' my training. Haha.
Well, all I have to say is that I'm doing my best and I really pray that time will begin to seal our friendships :D I will try to smile more. :D HAHA!
To me, this period of time I just want to make as many friends as possible cos life is really relationships. Haha :D Well, I'm quite sure I'll leave with at least 1 best friend from BMT :D
The worst encounter so far was FIRE DRILL! Our lights out time was 2300. Without warning, the fire drill alarm sounded at 2250!
I just entered the toilet and I just pressed the shower!! And I had to rush out and bring the 5 stuffs and fall in.
We all then rushed down and we all got sweaty and all and we failed to meet the 4 min fire drill timing. So we were sent back to bed all sweaty and had to sleep like that.
This is the worst encounter so far. I pray no more of such shit will occur. Haha.
To my friends: Cont. to keep me in prayer! And I'll see all of you guys in 2 weeks time! :)
Take care! :)
1st BOOK OUT DAY!
You'll never miss home this much until you've stayed in a place worse than your home. Haha.
My Sunday morn & afternoon was spent in church and my evening was spent at Joan's 21st birthday party! :)
Church was great :D To be in a place where acceptance and friendships thrive is rejuvenating. :D
Here are a few botak pictures taken in church :D haha.
Me & ex-sergeant Joella :) HAHA!
Me, Jon Wee & Marc :D
Service was great. I was really touched by the lyrics of the song "Lovesong" by Andrew Yeo. The chorus was exceptionally meaningful:
Only You can fill the vacuum in my heart
Only You can love me like no one else
I will run to You
I will run to You
The song simply brought tears to my eyes as once again He reminded me that no human imperfect love can ever fill the vacuum, the emptiness in my heart.
For our hearts all desire a perfect love that only God and only God can fill. No girlfriend, no best friend, no parent, NO ONE can love me and understand the depths of my being like Jesus can :) For He fashioned my inmost being and crafted me in His image :)
And I'm glad that I have that Saviour :D
Next up was Joan Tan's 21st birthday! :)
Me, Joan & Chor Seng :D
Her b'day party was cool :) And Guang Yao & Chor Seng are posted to SISPEC! Gosh. After all the months of training, they will surely become real teng (hard in hokkien. HAHA)
And thanks Sam for driving me around! :D HAHA!
Cherish your hair while you can Sam :D HAHA! And of course, Happy Birthday Joan! :) You've been an awesome friend :D
Thursday, 10 September 2009
My NS Expectations :)
I decided to put this document here so that all those that see it can come and ask me and check with me regularly if I've been fulfilling all that I want to fulfill :) Haha.
Expectations of my 2 years in NS
1) Stand for my convictions and “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)
2) Give my best and do “it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”(Colossians 3:23-24)
3) Be a testimony through my actions and to “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should not only look to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4)
4) Be a testimony through my speech. I should neither “let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29) “Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4)
5) Glorify God in camp through my speech and actions “that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16)
6) Persevere with a smile “because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance” (James 1:3) “and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
7) Reach out to all my friends in camp and to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) verbally and through my life testimony.
Do keep me prayer! :) haha. I'll see all of you after two weeks of isolation :)
Bye! :D
Dead Sea Scrolls :D
Haha. He's pretty keen so he came :D
It was a pretty enriching experience. Seeing all the evidences for which all the skeptics always challenge my faith for. There were mini lectures given over there too :) To explain all the artefacts in each of those rooms :D
God said His word will last forever. But it was almost wiped out by the Romans during war time centuries ago. Haha.
So here are some of the pictures :D For ALL the pictures, they're in my facebook :D
The first stop was the lecture hall :D
Jonathan, Me, Jeravan, my dad & Jerina :)
I just realised that Jonathan's name fits well into my family of Js too. HAHA! LOLS.
A fragment of the Bible of the book Psalm 11:1, 4
Archaeologists found some 18,000 of such fragments and they tried putting them together but had a hard time.
Finally infrared technology and DNA matching was discovered and intepreting the words on these manuscripts became so much easier for them to put the 18,000 pieces together.
These were written on sheep's skin, so DNA matching is important. They will take the DNA of all the pieces and match them together with those having the same DNA.
They took SIXTY years to bring all these 18,000 fragments together! SIXTY years! Imagine. We must thank those hardworking archaeologists man.
After 60 years, they put them together only to let a few hundred scholars intepret them into understandable languages they used then - like Latin, Middle English, etc...
The Bible came a long, supernatural way. God must've preserved them man.
HANDWRITTEN manuscript
When I was told that the paper thingy I was looking at was handwritten, my jaw dropped. It was before the time printers and typewriters were invented. Haha.
The most amazing part about these Esscene Jew scribes is that they are celibate (don't get married) and devote their lives to copying scripts. Imagine copying essays your whole life! So the result is near perfection copies of the many writings of the Bible we have today.
The only mistakes between these copies are just minor punctuation errors which doesn't affect the message of the script at all.
Me & Jonathan with the first copy of the authorised King James Version (KJV) Bible :D
They also covered who translated the Bible from which language to which language. Haha. Each translation of the Bible involves at least 20-50 Jewish Bible scholars. Crazy!
They quarrelled with each other more than translating the Bible. HAHA! A bunch of pompous, "all-knowing" scholars coming together will only result in some brushes. But thank God they finally finished what they were supposed to do. HAHA!
Jon, Me, Jerina & Jeravan with the ~15kg Bible in super old English. Haha. Worse than KJV.
Feeling like a Pharisee. HAHA! If that's how they pontificate the word of God, it's pretty scary. HAHA!
So yup, it was a really memorable event for me as I got to know the evidences behind the book I put my life on, my faith in and my hopes in.
It was also memorable because it's my last day before I entered NS! HAHA! So thank you Jonathan Wong & thank you Daddy, Mummy, Jeravan & Jerina for making this day an eventful one :)
I'm just so glad that I have a faith that's substantiated not like other religions. I don't mean to cause any religious riots but you've gotta admit that Christianity stands the strongest in terms of historical evidences. It has more than 6000+ manuscripts to prove Jesus' existence and many more to prove the OT.
Even some atheist scholars and many historians agree that Christianity stands firm on historical facts.
So yeah, I recommend you all go for this event! It's worth it! Once in a lifetime such stuffs are exhibited in Singapore. :D
Awesome Gift! :)
Like I told them, it's the best gift I've ever gotten from any best friend. Their effort and time put in to get all the pictures printed, get everyone's comments in, get all the Bible verses written out and all the hefty artsy work really touches me :D
Haha. So really a big thank you ABI & MERYL :) These are two pictures of the 1st two pages of the photo album :)
The one comment that stood out in stark contrast to others was Anthony's comment "Mercilessly Meticulous" HAHA!
He said I am meticulous was because I emailed them alot of stuff regarding the youth anni preparation - more than what Anthony & Andrina emailed. Haha.
Upon further thought, Anthony said he would use the word "Skeptical" to describe me more than meticulous. HAHA! LOLS.
There's dear xiao hua with his ticklish comment "sexy brows" which Cheryl kept harping on. Haha! I'll try to do something about my eyebrows :D HAHA!
Anyway, thanks everyone for your input and thanks again Abigail & Meryl for your heartwarming gift :) I'm glad to have friends like you guys :D
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Monday & Tuesday with a Swiss :D HAHA.
Swensen's in ION Orchard is the only Swensen's restaurant with dessert buffet cos it's the biggest outlet.
ICE CREAM! :D
Tuesday we decided to go to the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition :D However, upon arrival, we discovered that the PAP with their release of the book "Men In White" have forcibly took over the exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls and made the place into a private event!
Xiu Hua called the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) exhibition counter the night before and they told us that we could come anytime. However, on that day itself, they were taken over by that political exhibition. Either I'm informed wrongly by the DSS staff or I'm right about their last minute booking of the place. Haha.
After realising our wasted trip down, we decided to go Central Mall in Clarke Quay for dinner :D The marketplace area had a real nice dinner place with free flow drinks and affordable food in a super nice setting :D
After that, I proceed to Daryl's place to meet up with Cai Jie for our follow up :)
I'm pretty disappointed we didn't get to see the Dead Sea Scrolls but O well, I think we'll drop by again tml :D
Monday, 7 September 2009
Weekend with Daryl :)
I was to meet him on Saturday night for dinner when he suggested watching "Dance Flick" with Joel :D So we went :)
For those reading this, DON'T WATCH "DANCE FLICK" it's a 1 hour 5 minute show (excluding the credits) that's QUITE funny, NOT VERY funny. So do download it. Don't waste $10 like I did!! HAHA!
We then headed to Suntec for dinner and we had a nice 30min++ small talk at the sky garden :)
Me & Daryl in the sky garden :)
The water feature was originally in operation with water gushing out between the rocks. We chatted till the water stopped. Haha!
On the water feature that's turned off :D haha.
Joel & his damsel. HAHAHA!
Joel & Me :)
Joel & I again :D Without the hierachy of our status. HAHA!
After this lil' outing, we then went home and Daryl and myself proceeded to his place for our sleepover! :D
@ his place we watched "Role Models" on his laptop till 2am, then we chatted from 2am - 5am! Haha. We sure have a lot to share man :) haha.
The next day we stumbled out of bed into Uncle Peter's (Daryl's dad) car with Meryl as the driver! :D She's pretty reckless. HAHA! Just kidding. But she does reach speeds of up to 120km/h ok. Don't pray pray...haha. More like, must pray pray! HAHA! :D
It was Family Day @ the Zoo :D Laureen & I were the emcees for the game "Don't forget the Lyrics" :D I think we did great! :D Thanks Laureen for doing most of the Chinese intepretation as I rattled away in English. HAHAHA!
After service was our lil' zoo tour :)
Me & Daryl! :) W/ the white tigers in the background :D
Reuben & I :) My hair will be like Reuben's soon....HAHA!
Other pictures I took @ the zoo are stuck in Mervin's camera.. Haha. So will upload them soon :)
After the zoo, we were inspired to become animals - kill, scratch and devour. We went to do those actions digitally - We played L4D. HAHAHA! Playing as zombies, we kill, scratch, devour, etc...Like the animals in the zoo. HAHA! Whatever. LOLS :D
Marc then invited us to his new house! It's a condo in Hougang...forgot wad's the condo name...HAHA! His new place really is beautiful :)
Marc driving us there in his truck...haha.
Me, Daryl, Yourong & Marc's leg in his balcony :)
Us again still in his balcony :)
Marc & I in the transparent-walled balcony...haha.
Dinner @ night...in his balcony. HAHA!
Why were we so obsessed with his balcony? Because his room was too small to fit us all in. HAHA! But his place is really nice :D and security really tight! I remember opening his front door w/o deactivating the alarm and guess what? The alarm sounded and awoke the whole neighbourhood. HAHA!
Yup, what's most memorable is my sleepover w/o Daryl where we chatted our hearts away :)
Love you Daryl & jia you for your coming A levels! :)
Friday, 4 September 2009
Massive Shopping & My Cell Belated B'day Surprise!
I went shopping with all my besties! :D Present were Abigail, Anna, Meryl & Jeremy :) Whoo hoo! We were supposed to meet @ vivocity @ 1pm. But guess what? While I was on the MRT, I was just too eager to read finish the book "The Heavenly Man" that I simply read and I dumbly alighted at Marina Bay station when vivo's @ HarbourFront. -___-"
I was early ok! Early if our meeting place is Marina Bay. HAHAHA! So I got back to the correct destination. Sorry guys for my blurness! HAHAHA!
We then proceeded to Marche for lunch! :D We had a great time eating and chatting our minds away. It's great to really just sit down with good friends and share stuffs with other :D It's what Anna always refer to as "chill" haha.
So here are some chill pictures... :D
Abigail & I @ our eating place :)
Jeremy & I @ the wine & beer 'stall' :D
Me, Meryl, Anna & Jeremy outside Marche :D
And btw, in the picture above, Meryl's head popping out on the cow's head isn't actually a part of the cow figurine. HAHAHA!
Abigail with her coveted background that she wanted to be in. haha! :D
After our little chill-out lunch Meryl had to go back to school & Jeremy went shopping with his mum :)
Me, Anna & Abi then went shopping from 3.30pm - 7.00pm. And you thought guys can't shop. HAHA!
I initiated this lil' shopping outing because I wanted to buy every of my family member a little gift from the $$ I earned from work. I decided that buying gifts for them will be more meaningful rather than giving part of the $$ from my pay to them. Haha. So yeah, I accomplished much during this shopping trip and spent A LOT too. Haha.
So yup, we all got something except Anna, who was too lazy to purchase something she liked. Haha.
Anyway, thanks guys for accompanying me today and making this day so special! :)
Next in my schedule was a meeting with my cell group @ Fish&Co. @ Tampines Mall.
I sort of knew they had a little surprise for me there but it wasn't as I expected...
At the end of our O so sumptuous meal, they had the staff make me wear a wig (below) and stand on a chair as everyone sang me a birthday song. OMGosh! haha! O well, I had a great time there too :D
Thanks Andrina, Anthony, Phoebe, Kirk, Kevin, Johan & Farrah for that surprise and thanks for your cards and T-shirt from Uniqlo! :) Appreciate the effort put in guys! :D
Phoebe, Kirk, Kevin, Me, Anthony, Farrah, Johan & Andrina :D
Yup, today was a really accomplished and really fun day for me :) Appreciate you guys! :D
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
Two Triumphs! :D
Me (Your great grandfather), Joel (Your Sister), Jake (Your Father) & Norman (Your Korkor) VS Cedric, Yining, Aaron Chua & Ding Zhou. WE WON!! WHOO HOO!
Check out our cool L4D nicks in brackets! HAHAHAHA! It's seriously super funny..."Your great grandfather protected Your Sister" HAHAHAHA!
SEE YINING? I told you if the com not lag, you all will kena own!! MUAHAHAHA! :D :D :D
Anyway, I really enjoyed yesterday's game. It's been super long since we played so long and so well. Haha! We played from 10pm - 1am. Crazy gamers! HAHA! Thanks for the great game everyone! :D
2nd triumph:
I wanted my braces to be put on when I'm serving NS so I can get days off to do my braces stuff @ National Dental Centre (NDC).
And GUESS WHAT? NDC called me last week to report for my first braces check up appointment, AFTER FOUR LONG YEARS OF WAITING FOR A DISCOUNTED RATE!!
Haha. So yeah! Good & bad la...Cos my friends told me that putting on braces will also hurt a fair bit and affect your diet - you can't eat meat and hard foods initially. So in my first few weeks NS it'd be a bit torturous.
O well, look on the brightside Jonavan, there are off days? HAHA. :D