Cactus in the wilderness

Been feeling down of late. That same question that has kept awake on countless nights before has returned to keep playing over and over again in my mind like a broken vinyl - why am I faced with another challenge YET AGAIN just when I thought I had left one behind and could finally move ahead to straighten my life.

That being the case, I have been fasting, praying and crying out to God the past week while meditating on some scripture from Psalm 55:

'But I call to God, and the LORD saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice.' (v16-17)

This portion of scripture penned by the psalmist described exactly how I felt. Desperate, alone and drained from the many assaults that he had been put through. Truth be told, what the psalmist experienced was perhaps far worse than what I had endured, but the resulting emotions at the end were certainly similar.

On Friday night, during worship at cell, I continue to literally CRY out to God and ask for strength. I was not even interested in singing the song right, just opening up my heart and stretching out my hands, asking God that I may just dip my finger into His presence just so that I know He has not forsaken me. As always, God never disappoints.

At the end of the worship Rob said 'Rennie, God impressed upon me to share something with you'. I was speechless. From a guy who barely knew me personally, I knew it had to be from God because the words he spoke were so true and it sent a resounding vibe of reassurance ringing through my head. Here was a man with his own struggles, yet he was willing to be used by God to encourage a fellow brother who was too caught up in his own turmoil to hear God speak.

Rob went on to say that God gave him a vision of a cactus in the wilderness. On the cactus was a fruit that God was tending to. It will be tough for the fruit to bloom in the wilderness, on a cactus no less, but when the time was ripe for the fruit to be finally harvested and eaten, it would be so sweet that even the genetically engineered fruits in the world would pale drastically in comparison. He mentioned that God has seen my heart comparing myself with my worldy peers around me, wondering why I've not achieved as much as them. But God said to look to Him and nothing else because there are several areas He is continually dealing with before that fruit can be harvested.

Needless to say, I was in tears by the end of it. All because I serve and awesome and mighty God.

Vel's graduation

After missing last year's graduation concert as a result of her chicken pox, we made sure Velouria didn't miss this year's as it was going to be her last with Grace House. We, along with her teachers, were quite worried as she had taken ill for several days before the concert and hence missing out on quite a few rehearsals.

But praise the Lord she recovered pretty much quickly and was back to her usual nonsense self again; reciting all her lines (apparently the graduating K2 class was given the honour of giving an opening address to the audience on Mandarin), dancing away and singing all the songs with much gusto.

We were up bright and early and made our way to the school before the required 8am. Judging by the crowd there, we were not the only kiasu parents and being typical Singaporeans a queue started forming outside the hall even before 8.30am. Amazing!

As always, the pre-concert wait was a long one, made worse by our attempts to reserve seats for my parents and brother who had problems parking. When the concert finally began, we were so all excited and straining our necks to catch Velouria whose already petite frame was made smaller by the distance of the stage from our seats.

There were many endearing acts by the various classes, with one of WWE proportions where one boy started using his toy guitar (they were doing a rock n roll number) to hit his classmates around him. He was eventaully removed from the stage and I can only imagine the embarassed parents cowering in their seats.

Finally, it was time for Vel's act. They were doing a Chinese dance number and despite reminders to stay clear of the aisles, I still managed to sneak to the front of the stage to catch a small reel of Vel in action.

As always, the concert ended in a finale where all the classes came out to sing a song together. The area was so crowded that we lost Velouria in the sea of heads!

After the concert ended, even the pick up point was crowded with parents eager to pick their children up. I didn't bother to elbow my way to the front of the crowd and just waited for the crowd to slowly disperse. One of Vel's teachers eventually spotted me chilling out in my corner and brought her out for me.

Famished by then, we all headed to Red Star for a fantastic dim sum lunch to end of the morning.

Vel's P1 orientation at St Margaret's

There are several monumental moments in a parent's life with the Primary 1 orientation being one of them. It marks a new chapter of your child's life journey as she leaves the laidback kindergarten life behind and heralds the begnning of what I term as the 'stressful years' - homework, tests, assesment papers, exams, more homework, more tests, more assesment papers, more exams and, of course, CCAs.

Fearful of the parking, we arrived at the school quite early, only to find that parking was STILL a problem. Tired of driving in circles around Mt. Sophia, I finally decided to leave the car just a few metres from the main gate (blatantly ignoring the double yellow lines since there were already cars parked there). Penny and Velouria were nowhere to be found and I realised that they were with the uniform vendor. It was a quite a hilarious exercise just watching Vel try on her soon-to-be school uniform and PT attires. Despite putting on the smallest size available, it still looked too big for her. I'm sure I will look back on this day with fond memories when she finally outgrows her current uniform.

On the way to the school hall, we even bought a teddy bear in St. Margaret's garb to support some parent volunteers who were raising funds for needy students. As we were ushered into our seats, the girls were all seated in the front on the hall seperated from their parents. Velouria, as usual, was more than enthusiastic to mingle with her new friends. The girls were later ushered out of the hall to be taken care of by 'big sisters' while the parents remained to sit through the orientation programme with usual - speech from the principal, familiarisation with the school's facilities and various programmes, etc.

When it ended an hour later, all the parents burst out of the hall and began to visit the various vendors to do the necessary. Me, I took a stroll in the rain to Parklane to withdraw cash to pay for the schoool bus, books, etc after the uniforms burned away most of the money I had on me (who knew that the vendors only took cash, whatever happened to those mobile NETS machines?? Sheesh!!).

We ended our afternoon with a little snack at the canteen and chatting with a parent of one of Vel's future classmate. Only one thing to say - so exciting!

Durian session

Some liken the pungent odour to a pair of overused, sweaty socks; others will drive for miles and kill their closest kin to find and savour the perfect fruit.

I obviously belong to the latter group and found it only fitting to celebrate the end of my long bout of flu with a round of the thorny fruit. It had been a while since we last binged on durians (we used to have ‘durian parties’; aptly named because we had nothing but, er, durians!), so when Penny suggested that we take a short drive to the nearby market to get some I was all for it.

They are probably in oversupply this year because we were spoilt for choice when we reached the stall. Normally price-tagged by weight, there were D24s that were priced according to size – ranging from $1 each for small ones about the size of my head to $3 each for larger ones about the size of Andre the Giant’s head.

Not wanting to look el cheapo, we settled for the $2 ones because they didn’t look very much smaller than their $3 counterparts. We singled out about five of these little babies and proceeded to consume them kampung style – squatting on the floor and prying them open barbarically with my bare hands.

Licking every finger on both our hands, we ended our jaunt by picking out another five to pack home.

Akan datang: drum lessons

They say the best way to learn is to teach. Since I started drumming in church again two years ago after my century long hiatus, I have been toying with the idea of taking drum lessons. However, several lame excuses ranging from the lack of time to a supposedly deteriorating hand-eye-leg co-ordination had convinced me otherwise.

Recently, Justin and Natalie, along with their friend Deon, had been bitten by the drumming bug ever since they witnessed an 8 year old girl playing in their church's worship team. 'If she can do it, so can we' became the order of the day for the past few weeks. Since their parents saw no sense in signing them up for lessons or getting them a drum set to annoy the neighbours with, I volunteered to give them free lessons and probably a jam session or two. What better way to go back to basics than to hustle a couple of kids, eh?

Lesson number one was, of course, getting some sticks for the kids since all my spares were 5Bs and too big for their hands. Not being able to find anything suitable at the crappy Yamaha retail store, we headed down to Drum Resources as I only trusted Nigel and nobody else. True enough, he actually stocked some Pro Mark Junior sticks, which I eventually bought for Natalie and Velouria (who INSISTED on having her own pair as well). For Justin and Deon, a pair of medium weight, ball tipped 7As each ince I reckoned their grubby paws were huge enough to hang on to a regular pair of sticks.

Lesson number two will commence at the next Hushhouse jamming session at Mel's place. But first they'll have their exams to contend with.

Light at the end of the tunnel

A strange sense of deja vu had been plaguing me the past few months. It seemed that my life has been moving in circles and I kept asking God where all this was leading me to. Desperately wanting to understand God's will for my life, I was worshipping and waiting upon the Lord more fervently that I was normally used to.

I have always wondered to God why he never gave me an interest or talent in the financial, real estate or business arena - stuff that would REALLY earn the big bucks. And suddenly, like an epiphany, He pointed me towards the direction of education. It was like a refreshing splash of cool, clear water on my otherwise sullen and distraught spirit. I had been lamenting about not being able to find a job that I enjoy or something that was recession proof so that I didn't have to keep worrying about whether the gloomy economy would affect my paycheck and other similary nonsensical thoughts.

It was an epiphay because I had always loved teaching. I love working with children because it gives me a sense of immense satisfaction by imparting my life skills and knowledge to the younger generation with the hope that my (sometimes harsh) words would help mould them into valuable and effective individuals in future.

Going so far as to submit an application for a teaching post with MOE (which I never got a reply for so I assumed that is water under the bridge), I had a friend who introduced me a training post in a company which specialises in 'contextual learning'. The beauty of this system is that it not only applies to the education field, but can also be used for corporate training. It's basically a psychological technicality that simpletons like me would not be able to wrap my mind around. Yet.

I'm not at liberty to share too many details. Yet. But God has been great and I can finally see that small glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. God had opened a floodgate of blessing which I am suddenly afraid to take on because I know I am not capable of handling it with my own strength. I continue to wait upon the Lord to guide me.

I'm humbled and awe-struck by what God has revealed to my heart. All I had to do was just trust and seek him.

Hungry for Hungarian Goulash

It's hard to find a nice, thick Hungarian Goulash these days. I'm talking those with chunky bits of beef, potatoes, carrots and beans. Instead, the order of the day seems to be those sissy, diluted ones with no beef in sight (probably just strands of it) and what I absolutely detest is that they stew it so long till the teeny cubes of potatoes just melt away in your mouth before you can even land your molars on them.

We chanced upon Soup-erlicious, a soup café (which are another dime in a dozen these days), in Suntec one weekend. After walking around in Carrfefour, Vel complained that she was hungry and wanted some bread. Thinking that how boring it was just to eat bread alone, I suggested why not have some soup to go along after sighting the café as the nearest eatery to go to as we stepped through the check out counters. In actual fact, it was a ploy to find something substantial to fill my stomach as I was feeling slightly peckish as well.

To my amazement, the goulash was wonderful! It came with pieces of foccacias cut up into rectangular blocks (making it ultra easy for dipping) and the soup was the thick, gooey and chunky kind that I loved and missed so dearly. The soup was fragrant and flavourful, yet the beef was tender and the chunks of potatoes and carrots still had a nice crunch to them.

It was supposed to be a snack but the bowl was so huge that after draining it dry and wiping up the sides with the foccacia, I was stuffed (not Velouria though)!

Yummy indeed! I’ll definitely be back for more. My next target – Wild Mushroom Soup!

Dinosaur eggs and Bee-Bee

Another sign of my entry into premature mid-life crisis – I’ve been longing for snacks that I used to nibble on as a kid. For some strange reason, I had been reminiscing about those colourful little egg-shaped candies that we used to affectionately call ‘dinosaur eggs,’ owing to the colourful and speckled exterior of the chewy confection. Just the mere pondering on where I could get some kept me awake on many countless nights.

Surprisingly, I chanced upon these little treasures at the mamak stall tucked away in a discreet corner when we were at Bras Basah Complex one day. Of course, I bought a pack (along with a couple of packets of Bee-Bee to go around) and savoured them sparingly over the next few days (there are still a couple left in the fridge).

What can I say? Shiok, man!

The H.E.A.R.T. of worship

Attended RHC's worship workshop cum audition held by Aidan on Saturday. I'd been looking forward to this day since I read about it on the monthly flyer three weeks back. Honestly, I couldn't wait to getting back to playing with a worship team but yet felt somewhat consternated as I knew the people here seemed to be more technically inclined than what I was used to back at NCS i.e. there was no more ‘blur in, blur out’ anymore!

As a member of the worship team, I was taught that we should offer our best to God in terms of skill which involved constant practice and an effort towards self-improvement. Frankly, I didn't think my drumming was anything fantastic given the fact that I'd never had any professional training and am beginning to feel my co-ordination (or lack thereof?) get the better of me. That, of course, also does not mean that an absolutely tone deaf person should attempt to sing back-up.

I'd become so preoccupied with giving God my best that I'd forgotten to check what I was offering to Him. Psalm 78:72 says that ‘…with integrity of heart, with skillful hands he led them’. To put it simply, the skills are as every bit as important as the heart, one is not of more importance than the other. While not exactly a revelation, this concept has sort of been relegated to the back of my mind as I became preoccupied with learning the guitar (with the hope of picking up the bass some day) and drumming my a** off week after week.

The H.E.A.R.T. of worship consists being:
Humble – humbled by God’s awesome grace
Expectant – that God will pour out His presence in the midst of our worship and do something radical in our hearts.
Attentive – to how the Holy Spirit is moving
Real – God asks us to worship in spirit and in truth
Together – every individual united as one to build God’s house and see that His will is done (dialokismos in Greek – means to be of one mind and one accord)

Damn cheem. But still essential nevertheless.

Pigging out - a 'hum'-ful night

Penny was down with a really bad bout of flu for the past two weeks. When she finally did recover (not fully), we thought that it was only fitting that we celebrated it with a rather restrained pig out session at East Coast hawker centre (which is kind of an oxymoron when you think about it) since we didn't want her falling sick again soon after she had gotten well. Having being deprived of all the evil fried and oily food for the duration of her illness, she was craving for all the wrong things.

We started our feast with a plate of chicken wings, some satay and a couple of drinks. When we realised that all that stuff could barely fill us, Penny went in search of more grub to gobble up. Gone for a good ten minutes, she returned with a plate of the famous (but only okay by my standards - I still prefer the one at Balestier) satay bee hoon and, horror of horrors, a plate of see hum!

Armed with a toothpick and a saucer of sambal belachan, we went at it and soon all that was left was splattered blood and a pile of shells on the table. The cockles were barely cooked but that was what gave them that signature crunchiness. I never felt so disgusted but yet equally satisfied at the same time.

As always, we left rubbing our tummies, deeply satisfied with our meal.

Balloting @ St. Margaret's

Ten harrowing days. That’s how long it was from the time we registered to the day of balloting at St. Margaret’s. We trusted that the Lord would place Velouria there but the thought of 78 people vying for 73 places was still enough to place a fragment of doubt in your heart (having two sets of twins in the list of names didn’t help ease matters much either).

So there we were at 7.45 a.m. (Penny was sure that the balloting started at 8 a.m.) thinking we could chill out somewhere and have a coffee. The canteen was out of bounds so we headed straight to the school hall and counted every single minute to 8.30 a.m., when the balloting would begin.

As the seconds ticked on, more parents started streaming in. We were quite pleased with the fact the chaplain of the school opened the session in prayer at 8.30 a.m. on the dot, then off we went as the principal presented the ballot slips to the audience (via those old school projectors – they still have some use after all!) one by one before placing them into the box.

When the balloting began, the atmosphere was so tense that you would imagine someone getting thrown out if he so much as let out a fart. God spared us further torment as Velouria’s name was called out quite soon (didn’t keep count but reckoned it was within the first twenty). We were so relieved, but yet at the same time still felt quite tense for those parents whose daughters’ names had not been called yet.

But in the end, we all knew there had to be five who were not able to get in. Again, the chaplain closed the session in prayer and asked for God to guide those five girls and their respective parents. Praise the Lord! This is exactly the kind of environment we wanted for Velouria.

New beginning - reprise

So here we were. Our first Sunday out from New Covenant Sanctuary. It was a day we'd been looking forward to, with trepidation due to the new and unfamliar environment, and with anticipation with the knowledge that we were working towards bringing our walk with God to a whole new level. We'd been here before and we were comfortable. It wasn't a big church with tens of thousands of people, a huge stage for the worship team that looked more like a rock concert. But most importantly, we identified with Pastor Simon's vision of centering all aspects of church and personal activity around God's Word, with all else being secondary. Knowing it well was one thing, but applying it was a whole new ball game altogether.

Redemption Hill now had two services - one at 9.30 a.m., the other at 11.30 a.m. We figured it'd be better for us to attend the latter as it would give us some time after the service was over to speak with Pastor Simon and introduce ourselves as we had promised.

The worship was simple and touching. It has been a long time since I let my tears flow freely during corporate worship. The sermon was straightforward but impactful as well - Pastor Simon was speaking about work life and how we should use that to glorify God. It sort of changed my perspective of work and slogging it out with survival as the usual excuse.

We mingled around a bit and even got ourselves into one of the cell groups who meet every Friday evening at Hillview. Cool! We promsied that we would make ourselves available then. Grabbing some biscuits and drinks, we left the service feeling somewhat refreshed and burden-less (for lack of a better word).

We are REALLY looking forward to next Sunday. Haven't felt like this in a long time.

Pri 1 registration

The dreadful day that we've been waiting for had finally arrived - it was time to register Velouria for her Primary school!

After scratching off the option of MGS from our list (given their track record of not having vacancies for Phase 2C), we were left with St. Margaret's. Our resources indicated that they were not very academically inclined but we didn't really care. Who wants to put their kids in a school where they had to go through tons of revision papers every day and had to burn their Saturdays having extra lessons anyway? We sure don't! Most importantly, we wanted a school with a Godly environment that would nurture Velouria's desire to walk with God as she grew up.

Being the typical un-kiasu parents that we were, we sauntered our way into the school in the afternoon on the first day of registration. We went through the usual registration routine, which nowadays also includes a mandatory temperature taking, and waited for further instructions. The entire process took less than 15 minutes before the teacher came back to us with a couple of forms and told us 'That's it! Wait for the results to be announced after the last day of registration'. Satisfied, we went home.

It turns out that out of the 127 vacancies in Phase 2C for St. Margaret's, there were 132 applicants. Which means that we would have to go through the nail-biting process of balloting. And to deepen the suspense, we had to wait till 11 August (after the National Day long weekend, dammit!) to do so.

We await with bated breath...

Getting into the groove

After being together for almost a year, we are finally getting our act together as a band. I am a subscriber of the notion that music soothes the savage beast. So what better way to end the work week than with a jamming session, in a nice studio downtown no less!

My Saturday afternoons have become preoccupied with other arrangements so our only option left was to jam elsewhere since Mel's home studio was a great big no in the evenings, lest the neighbours should complain about the din we were making. It is therefore also subtly ironic that we are currently toying with the name Hush House, considering the amount of noise we make and distortion we use in our music.

So we found ourselves at Shiin Studio on North Canal Road (just above Settler's Cafe) where Mel apparently also jams with his other outfits. Cosy little place with two small studios, but with some rather decent equipment. Finally, a nice set of tight, tuned drums to pamper my sticks with. Here, they were equipped with a 6-piece Gretsch that came with double pedals (not that I needed them anyway - getting too old for that s**t).

All in all, a great (but albeit costly) evening of wonderful music making. We even got to try out our cover of Beach Boys' Don't Worry Baby with me on backing vocals. Cool!

New beginning

After months of hesitating and asking God for direction, we finally came to a decision to leave New Covenant Sanctuary. Maybe it's just us, but Sunday after Sunday, I feel that Penny and I were just going through the motion of going to church and serving our respective ministries. I cried out to God and asked for forgiveness that we'd become so passive. What had happened? We don't even know. I guess we came to a point where we were fed up of everything going in circles, and church was the last place we'd expect to deal with spirals.

Many have asked us - what if it was God's will for us to be placed in NCS, wouldn't we be going against His will by leaving? It's a case of being stuck between a rock and a hard place - we'd be damned if we did and damned if we didn't. Again, I prayed for forgiveness and told God that I'd rather sin in an attempt to get closer to Him than to remain there and sin anyway by harbouring so much bitterness that would kill our spiritual lives eventually.

I couldn't bear to leave everything that we tried so hard to build up, but I asked myself 'Would I be able to make a difference?'. In the end, it's all about doing it for His glory and not mine. I remember the prophecy given to me was that I'd work with youth of THE church; the prophecy didn't say THIS church, so I comfort myself with the thought that it's still His house no matter where we serve.

If it was really God's will for us to be there, guess He would send a 'big fish' to 'swallow' us up and spit us out back there.

We continue to pray for the people of NCS as we begin a new chapter in our walk with Christ.

Beaten at Monopoly Junior

I suck at Monopoly. In fact, I suck so bad that even Velouria can beat me. And we're not even talking about the standard Monopoly. We're talking about Monopoly Junior. With smaller notes. Less expensive property. Lesser squares.

Velouria had just gotten a hand me down set and I, being the kiasu parent attempting to educate her about the benefits of board games, decided to have a go at it with her.

The set came without any manual, so I distrbuted $100 to both of us and off we went. Being the aggressive 'businessman' with no strategy whatsoever, I just started buying up all the property that my token landed on. Just my luck that I got all the cheap, crappy ones. Velouria, on the other hand, was a scheming strategist that would have put Donald Trump to shame, buying up properties after a tremendous amount of thought. Only God knows what went on in her head in the midst of all that contemplation.

It seemed to have worked however. In the end, after mortgaging all my houses and selling off all my property, I had no moolah in my box. In stark contrast, Velouria had a handful of blue (her colour of choice) houses left on the board and a considerable stash of cash in her box.

Beaten by a six... no, five and a half year old girl, in a board game designed for pre school children. Major bummer.

Hilarious TVC

Rarely does a TVC catch my eye - most have got me reaching for the remote to channel surf, bolting to the washroom for a quick pee break or waltzing to the kitchen in search of something to satisfy my insatiable appetite for the munchies.

The last one that got me to sit up and notice (not to mention make me tear even) was Leo Burnett's TVC for MCYS's 'Beautifully Imperfect' campaign. Other than that, most other ads simply make me cringe:

a. with lousy acting (the Allwell herbal drinks with the couple at a hawker centre)
b. with cheesy, hard sell scripts (the Sinsin Soya Sauce ad with the grandma advising the dude against OD'ing his food with soya sauce and the wife jumps to his defense by saying that it's low salt, blah, blah)
c. just by being downright irritating (the Carlsberg ad with the beer and foosball table delivered to three dudes camping on a ledge of a snowy mountain)
d. all of the above

I happened to catch Heineken's new TVC today. Honestly, it caught me completely off guard and I thought it was going to be another silly TVC advertising some household product or some other contraption you DO NOT need in the home.

Damn funny lah. From a guy's point of view anyway.

Open up the sky

It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night
Psalm 92:1-2

I've played the drums for the longest time. When I offered my talent to the worship ministry, I did it with the intention of offering my best to the Lord knowing that this was one thing I knew I could do well without screwing up too badly. I love music and I have experienced first hand what the power of worship can do. While I take my drumming very seriously, I also love to sing and it was my hope that one day I would be able to lead the congregation in worship. To lead them to that realm of worship in order experience the touch of the Holy Spirit.

I take my drumming very seriously. Really!

Since I had some kucing kurap guitar skills, Daniel thought it'd be a good idea for me to try playing some songs. I'd led a few praise songs over the past few weeks, my signature tune being Tim Hughes' Beautiful One (I chose it for the simple chord structure and crowd 'ra-ra' factor - I'd heard him playing it live at the Planetshaker's concert last year).

Just last Sunday, Daniel decides that I should try leading the whole praise and worship. Praise wasn't going to be a problem, but worship was a totally different matter altogether. I decided to try Deluge's rendition of Open Up The Sky although I wasn't entirely sure if we could pull it off since the original was so heavy.

My benchmark for a good worship song is that it has to make your hair stand the first you hear it and cry the second. I cried the first time I heard this song and I had it on repeat in the car's CD player until the A-E-D-A riff was etched ever so clearly into my head. I have since played it umpteen times in my own worship with the Lord. Somehow the words of the pre chorus and chorus kept resounding in my head.

We won't be satisfied with anything ordinary
We won't be satisfied at all

Open up the sky
Fall down like rain
We don't want blessings we want You
Open up the sky
Fall down like fire
We don't want anything but You

It had been my prayer that our congregation be overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit during worship and the chorus seemed to echo that thought. For the Lord to fall down like rain and fire to completely engulf and surround us.

I just let the Spirit lead me when it was time to play. At one point, everyone just stopped the instruments and we just sang our hearts out. It wasn't even my intention at all but it all flowed so perfectly. Amazing what God can do when you surrender completely to His perfect will.

Can't wait to do it again.

Claying around

After having to do so much from Mondays to Fridays, Saturdays always seem to be a good day to slow down and chill out and basically do silly things. On this particular one, somehow we ended up at Bras Brasah complex after strolling around a flea market that was taking place outside SMU's Arts Faculty.

We wandered into the insanely huge Popular bookshop and ended up in the crafts section on the upper level. Before I could even utter a single word of protest, Penny and Velouria ended up with a pack of white clay, some poster colours and brushes and insisted that we went home to make something out of it.

It was off to work immediately when we stepped into the house. We cleared a table that would serve as our workstation and set our materials on it. Taking out a morsel of clay from the packet (these were air dried so we had to be extra careful), I proceeded to make the simplest thing that came to my mind first - a worm.

With furrowed brows, I began to scuplt my masterpiece despite Penny's incessant reminders to strengthen the sculpture with toothpicks. I ignored her, my argument being that I wasn't making a complicated sculpture and there was no need for internal skeletons of any kind. She proceeded to do hers with a toothpick within regardless. And ended up with a sausage. With grill marks, no less.

The worm looked kinda freaky when I was done. It looked more like some creature out of Dune than Sesame Street. What I intended to be the mouth added to the seemingly malevolent guise of the poor catepillar.

I went on to apply the colours anyway, choosing a green for the body and filling in the lines with brown later. It was a lot tougher than I thought! It was an intricate matter trying to paint something so tiny. My hands were so tired after having to make such precise, controlled movements.

Not bad for a first try! My next sculpture - a tortoise. Stay tuned.

Silly Singaporeans

Despite the seemingly high levels of education and affluence of the people in Singapore, I am repeatedly appalled by how many of us still have not seemed to grasp the necessary aptitude to fill up entry forms in its entirety. In my course of work, I am required to compile customer information into our company databse and this somewhat mundane task is made increasingly frustrating with incomplete fields, illegible handwriting or even nonsensical answers. Honestly, is it too much to ask to draw a dash or pen the alphabets NA on fields that are not applicable to you?

Other idiosyncarcies of nonchalant Singaporeans:
- 28 Dover Court: no postal code, either this person does not care or is totally oblivious.
- 28 Dover Court #02-02: do I assume this is an apartment block? Or is the person trying to make his address pass off as one in a condominium?
- #02-02 28 Dover Court Dover Road S'123456: don't they know there is a specific order in which addresses are written in?

There is no end to the sheer level of inanity which continues to baffle and annoy me. Graaaaah!!

House visiting

Penny and I have been dreaming of getting our very own brand new home for the longest time. We have sort of given up on that hope after being unsuccessful in HDB's countless balloting exercises for new flats. In the meantime, we just satiate our appetites for our new abode by visiting other people's and convincing ourselves with the 'it's not God's time for us to have a new home' mentality.

Our latest foray was to Jarrod's and Fiona's. After several invitations, we finally made time to drop by at their newly acquired property of a semi-detached house. It was a lazy Saturday and since I had to work, it was a good opportunity for Penny and Velouria to have breakfast and chill there.

It was not hard to find despite them telling us that numerous people got lost looking for their place before. I mean, seriously, how hard is it to get lost in our tiny island nation?

From the outside, the edifice looked simple and straightforward, nothing elaborate like some of the houses we passed on the way in. Upon stepping in, we were greeted by a wide and spacious living room, with a TV area and a sofa accompanied by two armchairs. They had opted for an open concept kitchen so we could see through to the back of the house just standing at the door. The kitchen, like the living room, was uncluttered and practical with all the necessities and nothing more.

Surrounding the kitchen and dining area were floor-to-ceiling glass doors swathed with roller blinds, which allowed natural light on fair days and providing the option to keep the light on days when the sun blazes mercilessly.

Just beyond those glass doors was a tiny little garden big enough to lay a mat to have a picnic on. Fiona was also attemtping to grow some herbs which were placed in a huge pot that was used to conceal a sewerage cover.

We decided to explore the upper level next and the first thing that caught my eyes was the light bulbs dangling from the ceiling. Again, nothing fancy and very practical but yet tastefully done. It was just one of those things that make you go ‘Damn, why didn’t I think of that?’.

The upper level was equally cool. They kept elements of the retro fixtures that came with the original house which was built in the 70s like the staircase railings, the mosaic tiles of the guest room and even salvaged the old window grilles from the master bedroom into a trellis-like fixture to hang their plasma TV from.

In short, the whole place was groovy without being too ostentatious. Just practical and uncluttered, just the way we like it.

A-roi krub... again!

After the excellent (in spite of it being expired for more than six months) tom yum soup we had a couple of weeks earlier, we went back to Giant and bought ourselves more of the similar range of Thai food from Thai Kitchen. Apparently, Giant Hypermart brings this brand of products in by themselves so it explains why we could not find it anywhere else.

We decided to buy the tom yum kung again, and also purchased a tom kah khai, which is basically a tom yum stew of chicken with a creamy coconut milk base. It's been ages since I had a good one and thinking about it now brings me back 20 years to our Telok Blangah flat where this dish was normal fare whipped out by the Thai domestic helper we had back then.

It had been a crazy week and I was too lazy to cook, so I guess the tom kah khai came in really handy. The recipe called for chicken slices, but I was too lazy to debone the chicken parts we had in the freezer. Instead, I used the chicken pieces, with bones intact, and it still turned out wonderful. As with the tom yum kung before, all the ingredients were individually packed into several numbered packets, so all I had to do was boil some water and add the chicken pieces.

The final product was nothing short of wonderful. Penny was too stuffed to eat much, but I sipped up every last drop of soup.

Excellent!

Fearfully and wonderfully made

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:14-16

The above Psalm describes how well God knows us, perhaps even better than we know ourselves. I've always thought this to be a tad hard to swallow - can it be remotely possible that someone knows me better than I know myself?

God answered that question when He blessed us with Velouria. Seeing how Velouria has idiosyncracies and physical behaviour that is a combination of both Penny and myself has convinced me and very possibly a reminder from God to tell me that He indeed knows me and can even create a 'mini me'.

The year Star Wars Ep. IV was released, I was lying on the floor of an apartment in Outram Park having my favourite drink of the moment.

Some 28 years later, Velouria does likewise on our bed. In the exact same pose.


I would have excused it if it was the left leg over the right, but noooo... it had to the EXACT SAME POSE! Albert Einstein once said 'Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous'. Couldn't have put it better myself.

Watching out for the Watchmen

The top movie on my 'Must See Movies of 2009' is opening in 2 weeks time. After so much controversy and production hiccups, I'm glad DC finally gave the thumbs up to Zack Snyder to direct the screen version of the much-acclaimed comic that was first published in 1986. In my opinion, he did a fabulous job with 300, capturing that dark, enigmatic feel of the Spartans from Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name, and I'm confident he's capable of doing the same with Watchmen.

Check out the trailer below which almost made me soil my pants. My fanboy palms are sweating in anticipation. So exciting!!




The 12-issue comic series found crtical acclaim as it came during a time when American comics industry was facing an all time low since the 1950s anti-comics movement. Not only did it shatter all comic book superhero stereotypes, it was a political and social commentary touching on the uncertianties of the 1980s. Revisiting the plot now serves as a poignant and stark reminder of how things could have been and also how volatile things are in this crazy, callous world.

Read up on the Watchmen here before catching the movie so it doesn't spin you in circles.

I await with bated breath.

The world will look up and shout 'Save us!' And I'll whisper 'No.'

~ Rorschach

A-roi krub!

I've always been a sucker for Thai food. But it's hard to find really good, authentic Thai food in Singapore (we usually go to Ying Thai Palace at Purvis Street but they are quite pricey). The crap they serve at places like Baan Thai are what I term the 骗红毛 kind of fare you'd usually find littered around the island. They serve you that oily, red, just-spicy-and-not-much-else tom yum soup and they don't even have chicken feet salad on their menu.

Just yesterday, I had a sudden craving for tom yum soup. Too lazy to go out there and find a good one, we rummaged the fridge and realised that we had this tom yum kung soup package that we'd bought eons ago but never got around to cooking it. It came with all the necessary herbs, spices and sauces required to make ourselves a nice, steaming pot of that mouth-watering, sour and savoury broth. And we could add whatever we wanted! Lovely!

I prepared some prawns (the scrawny kind although the recipe on the pack called for king prawns), squid, some chicken and a whole lot of straw mushrooms. It was so convenient - just boil some water, throw in the mushrooms with Packet #1, bring to a boil, add Packet #2 and the rest of the ingredients, bring to boil again and add Packets #3, #4 and #5 before turning off the fire. That's it!

We were drooling by the time it was done as the fragance was overwhelming while the soup came to a boil. Slurp!

*Sorry, no pic of the final product since we were famished by the time the soup was done!*

Spritual surfing

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1

Faith is a peculiar thing. Just when you think you have it, it eludes you and starts whether or not God is indeed there. The Bible tells us He is always there, however our sin separates us. How then do we not sin? Is it even possible while we live in a fallen and sinful society, surrounded by secularity each day? The Bible tells us it is possible; ‘I can do all things through Him who strengthens me’ (Philippians 4:13). But in order to truly believe in that, we need to have faith.

Hence my dilemna. I seem to be caught in a vicious cycle. Every Sunday after a good praise and worship session or a good sermon, I feel ready to take on the world after being touched by the Holy Spirit. Somewhere along the way, just when I thought everything is going to be great, things just don't seem to go my way. So my faith gets zapped and begin to wonder if God is there. This feeling of hopelessness sometimes even carries into Sunday when we go to church, so while everyone is worshipping the Lord, I’m wondering about what is going on in my life and what God can do FOR ME. From there, my logic takes over and I begin to take things into my own hands, which of course ends up

Evertime I pray, God tells me to trust Him more. How do I trust Him if I don’t have faith? Faith comes from the Word of God, so the Bible says. But again, if I can’t even bring myself to sing a song of praise, how do I open up the Word of God to focus on what God is saying?

It’s a sucky feeling to have to go through this cycle over and over again. Each time I think I’m up there, I find myself down below again. Day in, day out I ride the tides of wavering faith.

I reckon what I’m going through now seems akin to surfing. You see a great wave, you think you can handle it so you swim out and take it on. Halfway through you get wiped out and you ask God ‘Where were You when I needed You?’ Then God picks you up and sends you out there. You get complacent and the whole cycle repeats itself. Bummer.

Maybe one day I’ll have enough material to write a book. It’ll be entitled ‘Spritual Surfing: Riding the Tides of Wavering Faith’ and go on to become a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. I’ll be filthy rich from royalties, get complacent and find myself back here again.

The Lunar-cy of the Lunar New Year

It has begun. As much as I hate festivities and all the hoopla that comes with it, there is no escaping the insanity of the Lunar New Year since we are, after all, Chinese. It started a couple of weeks back with the purchase of a CNY-ish plant which I don't even know the name of, putting up obiang looking 福 paper cut-out decorative thingies (must be inverted, no less), getting crushed in the markets and, the part I hate most, spring cleaning.

Our refrigerator is filled to the brim with stuff since the Chinese are a superstitious lot (i.e. my mum-in-law) and believe that the house should be chock full of food as we pass into the New Year. And that is not even taking into the account the junk food we have sitting outside the refrigerator.

Is it just me getting old? Or is it just my overall nonchalance with life that I just can't seem to be bothered with such things anymore? Given the choice, I would just pass the holidays quietly without any visitations or parties whatsoever. But I suppose my family wouldn't have any of that.

As I am typing this, Penny and Vel are off with the MIL to the markets in search of the perfect fishballs for our steamboat tomorrow. I'm like, whatever.

恭喜发财，身体健康.

Tortured

I've done threading on my eyebrows before, it's part and parcel of my beauty regime. It hurts like mad - no amount of military training can prepare you for such an intense pain and I used to wonder why women still insist on torturing themselves this way - but it's way more effective and prodcutive than plucking with a pair of tweezers.

Penny decided to take a trip to Rimpy's, our usual Indian eyebrow threading parlour at Clementi Central, to do her eyebrows. She ended up threading her whole face and came out even more satisfied than usual. As if that were not enough, she glances at my face and decides that I needed one too. I thought, shouldn't be that bad and it's been a while since I had my last threading anyway.

When my turn came, I lay down on the chair as usual and the auntie proceeded to do my eyebrows. It was a totally different sensation altogether when she moved on to my face. To describe the pain as excrutiating is a severe understatement - I had half the mind to jump out of the seat and yelp. All I could do was grit my teeth and grunt, twitching a little once in a while.

It was the longest 5 minutes of my life, but my face seemed a little brighter after the whole procedure. Or so Penny claims. Same same, but different.

Relieved! So *%^# painful!

I love shopping

Yes I really, really do. Maybe it's one of the many occupational hazards of being a marketeer - having to prowl the retail level to keep myself updated, steal ideas, etc. I just enjoy looking at stuff and studying every little detail on the packaging (for processed items like food) or analysing the stitches on a certain shirt or figuring out how another weird kitchen contraption works. But being a typical guy, the way we shop tends to differ from the way the opposite sex does it.

Our DNAs are programmed in such a way that we can walk away from something we don't need and we purchase only when we have to. And when we finally do, we have a pretty clear idea of what we want. Just like a few months back when I bought my ultra cool pair of boots from Primevera, I chanced upon some vintage inspired T-shirts at F.O.S. by Junk Food Clothing. Apparently, celebrtities in Hollywood are lapping them up and it is the 'happening' thing to wear now. It is available on the Junk Food website and over here in Singapore they are available at NewUrbanMale as well as other funky shops at Far East Plaza and Heeren. They are, in my honest opinion, quite ridiculously priced given the quality of the fabric and also because I never believe in paying more than $20 for a T-shirt.

So imagine my glee when I found out that the they were going for only $19.90 a piece at F.O.S.!! I was quite peeved that the female selection was way wider than the males (and they came with much more reasonable sizes too!), but at such a bargain I couldn't complain.

I ended up with only four pieces that came in a Medium - one cool, green with a Green Lantern logo; another green one with an old 80s Atari-esque Pacman accompanied by power pellets and ghosts; a brown one with a M.A.S.H logo (the old 70s sitcom) and another brown one with the Community Chest livery from the Monopoly game.

Who cares if they are fakes? I don't! Who can tell if they are factory rejects? I certainly can't!

Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine

There's nothing like a good fanboy movie to put a grin on my face. Along with Terminator: Salvation and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, another movie that has got my fanboy palms sweating is X-men Origins: Wolverine, slated for release in May.

While poseurs all around the world lapped up the X-men trilogy on the big screen, I wasn't particularly pleased as I felt the movies couldn't do much justice to each of the characters as individuals. Unlike the Spiderman movies which worked well chronicling the life of Peter Parker as he became Spiderman, the X-men franchise works better on print due to its ensemble of characters which can never be fully fleshed out and explored with 120 minutes of screen time. The Dark Phoenix saga was one whole mini series by itself, but it was barely covered in X-men 3: The Last Stand.

Which is why I was pretty excited when news of the Wolverine movie broke. I'm not particularly pleased that Hugh Jackman was chosen to play Wolverine (I would have preferred the more feral-looking Dougray Scott, who passed on the opportunity to participate in the first X-men movie due to film committments on Mission Impossible 2), but I must say he has done a pretty fine job munching on cigars, cocking that eyebrow and going on berseker barrages. He reprises his role as Wolverine, which is a prequel to the X-men movies set 17 years before the events of the first Xmen movie, exploring how he got involved in the Weapon X program (that gave him his adamantium-laced skeleton), why he's always hell bent on ripping Sabretooth's head off, and hopefully his obessession with Harleys, etc.

**TRIVIA NOTE: Wolverine's mutant healing factor slows his aging process drastically, which explains why he looks the same 17 years before and after.**

Far more exciting than Logan's flashback is the fact that this movie also introduces a whole host of other mutants from the X-men universe - the suave card flicking, pole fighting Gambit; the fat bouncy dude known simply as Blob; my favourite wise-cracking, cancer-ridden ninja-commando Deadpool; a younger Storm whom Logan is supposed to meet as a pickpocket in Cairo (according to the comics, but not sure how it'll be portrayed in the movie) and a younger Cyclops (dunno what he's doing here - they never met according to the comic book storyline).

The trailer looks REALLY exciting. I await with bated breath!!

Washed by the Water

Even when the rain falls
Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes
I am washed by the water

Even when the earth crumbles under my feet
Even when the ones I love gonna try to crucify me
I won't ever ever let you down
Won't go, won't go, won't go
As long as you're around me

Washed by the Water by NeedToBreathe

Have been quite frustrated with myself of late. There seems to be so many things that I know need to be taken care of but I just never seem to have the motivation to get them done. I am starting to question if this sense of nonchalance and procrastination are a sign of a mild depression setting in.

I have to admit, I have problems even trying to cry out to God. As hard as I try, I can't seem to even sit down for 5 mins and wait on God anymore. So many thoughts stirring in my head but yet I can't utter any words to speak to Him.

Just when thoughts of trying to stay afloat and keep my head above the water in a stormy sea, God speaks to me with Washed by the Water by NeedToBreathe (just like He did before with Restore To Me by Glory Revealed). Strangely, this song has been playing in my phone for the past two weeks (I ripped it from the WOW 2009 compilation I bought) but the words suddenly rang with such clarity that I just couldn't stop listening to the song all the way back from work.

Water in the Bible symbolises cleansing and purification. I sense that God is sending me a message to purify my heart again and set Him above all else so that I can stand firm with Him.

Hebrews 10:22-23 says: 'Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.'

New Year's Eve @ 477 JWest

After having so much fun at the Christmas sleepover in church a week earlier, the youth suggested that we do something similar for New Year's Eve. Although some came up with the crazy idea of camping on the beach at East Coast just so we could see the fireworks display at Marina at the stroke of midnight, I was crazier to suggest another sleepover in church plus a hike up Mt Faber close to midnight for a glimpse of the aforementioned fireworks display. But both options would have left us cold and hungry, so I opted for a BBQ at our place instead (Blk 477 at Jurong West, geddit??).

We had purchased all the necessary items earlier, going to QB Foods at Chin Bee to purchase a one-kilo slab of sirloin, frozen mussels and other similarly congealed foodstuff. It was half day at the office so it was on with the preparation the minute I got home.

Some of the youth started to arrive at about 5PM, so they helped out with the prep work while I got my hands dirty trying to get the fire going. An hour later when the red hot charcoal burning at a nice, slow pace, it was time to start bakar-ing all our stuff.

The food was great - my favourites have got to be the wings seasoned with honey mustard (my idea!) and the squid with cincalok that never fails (though a tad spicy). Penny started baking the mussels in the kitchen halfway through, but only managed half of the box as the rest were soon forgotten amidst the hoo-ha happening outside.

Of course, most of them couch potatoes took a break to catch Love Blossoms at promptly at 7PM and later at 9PM to catch Little Nonya.

Despite worrying about not having sufficient grub for the kids to last through the night, we had enough leftovers to last us for the next few days in the end - a bag of otah, two more kilos of chicken wings, one bag of sotong balls, one bag of cocktail sausages and five slices of sirloin steaks.

The major spoiler of the night was when Joel was 'recalled' home by his mum, punishment for not keeping her informed that the party was a sleepover and making her worry into the night. It sort of dampened everyone's spirit somewhat and after Joel left for home reluctantly (accompanied by Philip to cushion the impact), everyone was just too bummed to do anything else. Despite an attempt at some card games to reignite the party spirit, it was somehow half-baked with the thought that our brother was getting his @$$ kicked by his mum back home.

By 2AM, I was too zonked to carry on so I left them to go about their activities - Ash and Carissa were glued to the Korean drama series on DVD that was recommended by Penny, some were sleeping in our room while other just crashed in the living room. I found a corner in the living room to spread out a thick blanket and KO'ed there before my eyelids became too heavy to keep open. Amazingly, Ash and Carissa were still at it when I woke up in the morning!

I hate to admit it, but age is REALLY catching up. Can't keep up with these sleepovers like I used to.