My soon-to-be new hobby

Been feeling restless these few days. Couldn't keep still for 5 mins and had to keep getting out of my seat to stretch myself, walk to the washroom, etc. Probably the stress is getting to me, which also explains why I can't sleep at night.

I thought that maybe it's time I did some exercise to purge out all the pent up steam that has been accumulating. Then I remembered parkour, something that I've always been intrigued by but never had the chance to explore further on.

Parkour originated in suburban France and it can't really be considered a form of extreme sport or categorised into any other form of sport. Made popular by movies like Yamakasi, The Great Challenge, B13 and Casino Royale - where 007 runs after this African guy. Basically, traceuers (particpiants of the sport) run (duh), jump, hop, somersault their way through obstacles like buildings, stairs and other variety of inanimate objects in their everyday environment.

Founder David Belle couldn't have summarised it better when he said "Martial arts train you for the fight, parkour trains you for the flight". The original intention of parkour was to train the body to move in the fastest, most efficient way in times of an emergency. However these day it has evolved into 'free running' where traceurs take to the streets to execute more elaborate and complicated moves.

You can check out the video here.

Apart from capoeira which I've been wanting to try out (cos I've got long legs which always don't seem to fit anywhere), I think free running would be quite wicked to try out. I reckon you would require a decent amount of upper body strength, which I would like to believe I have since I was capable of 22 pull ups within a minute in my prime (of course, that was 10 years ago).

I'm sure, like capoeira, there is already a small group of people already practising it here. Now my mission is to find le traceurs du Singapoeur.

Being on fire for God

We had a guest speaker, Pastor Loh, on Sunday who spoke about being on fire for God. He made a very good point, quoting Revelations 3:16 which says: "So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth". Either we are hot or cold, anything in between is unacceptable to God.

He went on to talk about why Christians today are becoming lukewarm in their attitudes towards God, getting distracted by worldly desires and the burdens of this fallen world. I couldn't help but think about myself, how I get so wrapped up in worrying about the things of this world than His kingdom. Overwhelmed by guilt, I said a silent prayer asking for forgiveness.

It's difficult to have faith and BELIEVE when things around you that can go wrong just go wrong. As i prayed, I remembered Lamentations 3:27 which says: "It is good for the man to bear the yoke while he is young". Which probably explains all the shit we have to go through in our life as God prepares us for bigger and better things.

I continue to pray that He gives me renewed strength everyday to fight the battle and forge ahead.

This Is The Day... Vel's graduation concert

All the hoo-ha and anticipation finally led up to this day. We were all so excited; changing Velouria, making sure her hair was all in place, putting on make-up for her (only to realise later that our enthusiasm was uncalled for as their teachers actually tied her hair and applied make-up all over again backstage).

After handing her over to her form teacher, we all milled into the concert hall and were all chatting and laughing, snapping our cameras and watching the Powerpoint slideshow (showcasing photos from activities that the students were involved in) over and over and over again. We were all straining our necks to see if anything was going to come out from the side of the stage.

Finally, at 5.30pm on the dot, the MC (a horrible one at that, kept getting all the names wrong) came on stage and went through the usual pleasantries. This was followed by a thank you speech from the Director of Grace House, Ms Isabel Ng, and the Head of Children Ministry of Grace AOG (can't remember her name but she was quite a character though - 'I love children and the children love me' is a line I'm going to remember for a looooong time).

Then came the graduation of the K2 kids. Their entrance could rival any banquet first dish presentation, with all the fanfare and marching. What really touched us was that Ms Isabel Ng actually prayed for the children after they were all presented their certs.

Then the concert proper began. The first item was of course with Velouria's group singing 'It's A School Day'. It was quite a mess (but a cute one) with all the kids more interested in identifying their family and friends in the audience. It was a good preview for the next few items coming up as the audience (us included) lapped it all up and clamoured for more (parents were all rushing to the front to get pictures of their kids).

There were more items in between but I think what caught everyone's attention were the Playgroup kids. These were children between the ages of 2 & 3 who were not eligible to go to N1 yet. It was a joy to see some of them running all over the stage (much to the teachers' dismay), some just froze and forgot what they were supposed to do, while others just freaked out and cried. It was a blast!

Then Velouria's group came out again. They were decked out in beach gear, with the girls in a fake hula grass skirt made from raffia and plastic flowers. This time they did a very reggae rendition of 'See The Works Of The Lord'.

But what topped it all was the finale item when ALL the kids came out and sang 'This Is The Day'. I believe this was the one that the kids trained really hard for as all of them were screaming out all the words at the top of their lungs (even for the Mandarin version!).

In the end, though we were all famished we all left smiling, satisfied that all the wait was worth it. This Is The Day indeed...