Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Extremely long weekend but thoroughly enjoyable.

The first highlight was obviously camp. It was excellant! Firstly, I woke up at 430 for morning prayer on Friday night (as usual). After the usual morning prayer, I came home and packed for camp. (Couple of minutes and I was done) I checked with Sky and he said he'd pick me around 1.

So at about 120, his mum came by and picked me to his place. He just got back from college. We headed to church from there. On arrival, there were quite a number of people already there waiting for the bus. It had yet to arrive though, so we occupied ourselves chatting aimlessly. Kevin was a little frustrated because the bus was late. But in the end we boarded pretty OK. I fell asleep in the bus because it rained cats and dogs; It was so cool.

On arrival, we came to Sufes Tapah, a damp little site with lots of grass, trees and little else. There were a couple of buildings littered here and there. Anyway, we unloaded and then I went to register for camp. The one thing that struck me the most about a campus youth camp (my first) was that things were a lot less rigid. I suppose with age, there should be maturity. At least that is expected.

We went to check out our tents. Unfortunately, they were soaked through due to the rain. Luckily it had already stopped and we all tried to dry it as best we could. Then we had ice breaker; Treasure Hunt so to speak. We won, so I'm not complaining. Dinner, which we had to clean up ourselves after (it was fun) and arrival of the next bunch of people. Nothing much for the first day. 2nd day was more interesting. Session 1 followed by lunch and then stream trotting. That was the highlight of the camp, I suppose. Went climbing upstream. It was in our groups, and in a row. The guys were supposed to help the girls, but woe to me, I was the only one who failed in that task. My 'helpee' almost sprained her ankle due to my inadequate guidance. She ended up hobbling all the way holding up the line. So to Annabelle Yeoh, my sincerest apologies, and to everyone else too, it was me who caused the crawl, not her. So we reached the waterfall which was amazing. We slid down it and stuff. Too bad the stay was a little short IMHO.

Heading back, we had a bathe, makan, and then session. Ps Palan squeezed 2 sessions into one. I was surprised at myself that I wasn't a least bit sleepy. Then at the end, we had an all nite session of Mafia, Story telling and Murderer. Thank goodness Joshua Ting was around to ease the boredom. That is one excellant dude to hang out with. We were up till sunrise, and the final session. Then we all packed etc and went home. Most wonderful camp!

Post camp, I was drained, but surprisingly the most I could manage was 11 hours of sleep. I couldn't sleep anymore after that. Monday was interesting. I talked to Ying Yi over dinner about an idea I had, and I certainly hope it comes to pass. I did what I could (which was why I was busy the past few days) and here's the result.

CLICKEY

So that's all I have to say. I'm going to Saisaki later. Wish me luck!

Posted by Gerald at 6/30/2004 09:53:00 AM

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Just a quickie, might go swim in a bit!

Watched Around the World in 80 days. Pretty OK for a Jackie Chan movie... One of his better ones I think, but I was hoping it wouldn't be a movie where one would have to leave one's brains at home. Enjoyable though.

Past couple of days has been fun. Daily morning prayer is really helping me get my sleeping right. At least I don't pig till 12 + unlike some people I know.

Met up with Tho Wei and Cher Chin too. Went mamak. It was pretty cool meeting up again. I'm still appalled at how they managed to squeeze 5 people at the back of my car, AND Tho Wei was in the back. Luckily it was a VERY short distance from Eugene's house to Melur. Talked about our days in Singapore (like that was YEARS ago... )

Camp will be this coming Friday. Post more about it another time.

Uhoh, time to go for my swim. Later!

Posted by Gerald at 6/23/2004 06:17:00 PM

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Long time since my last post. Weekend was pretty awesome. I had to wake up early on Friday morning for practice. I'm backup singing for the Wesley Methodist CF camp. (Which reminds me, I need to memorise lyrics) Practice was quite good. I learned a couple of new songs, so I guess I have to work on them. I also availed myself to help out in the workshop. But lo and behold, now i'm facilitating it (close to conducting it I think) Luckily I have the material for it so it shouldn't be too big a problem. I do have to edit/cut&paste around though. Cell on Friday was interesting. Having combined worship/ice breaker was good. Word was led by Soon Chen instead of Grace, but it was still good. The iron sharpens iron talk was pretty informative. Plus, we had Adrian (he's working...) who gave us an adult's view. Interesting to note that he's also a new christian, but he's more mature then some other long term christians i've seen. It's amazing how far God can take a person with a willing heart.


Yea anyway, after practice I went to IMU to meet up with Sook Meng, Hee Siong and some 'other' people. Only problem was that on arrival, there were no 'other' people. Furthermore, Hee Siong had to lunch with his mum. So I ended up lunching with Sook Meng at Sri Petaling. Chicken rice was pretty much it.

Saturday I had a basketball match. It was pretty intense and was fun too. I don't really know how well I played though, so I won't comment there. Went to church that night as usual, and Ps Daniel really preached his heart out. I guess he really had a burden for the church and it all came out that weekend.

Well, Sunday was occupying. I guess it was better than rotting at home. But going to One Utama and spending a day there with people you hardly know does have it's downsides. It was fun near the end where we played Cranium (even though we lost *humph*) Cranium IS a fun game. My only gripe I suppose is that they should have a Malaysian version or something. Too many USA type questions.

Monday morning marked the start of 14 day fast and prayer. Waking up at 420 every morning is no joke. But it's fulfilling. Unfortunately, unlike everyone else, I have nothing to do in the morning after prayer, so I hit the bed again. It kind of ruins the mood. Did some banking too on Monday. Transferred some money over to my uncle. I broke fast at night with Tat and Chew. Ate quite a bit actually. Thankfully I didn't stuff myself TOO much.

And this morning was pretty much the same as Monday except there was extra luggage in the boot and chocolates as well. Oh, I picked Annabelle to and from prayer too. Lydia went off to the airport at around 7 so it's bye bye Lydia and have fun in the US!

Now I'm home, bored out of my wits, and wondering what to do next. Maybe a book will take me through the rest of today. Cheers.

Posted by Gerald at 6/15/2004 01:46:00 PM

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Had some banking to do yesterday. So went to Maybank and transferred some money to my uncle. It was pretty quick surprisingly.

Nothing really much happened. Most (if not all) important stuff have been done. I think this is gonna be a short note.

Just to give a few people greetings today.

Happy Birthday mum! I love you lots and here's my shout-out to you!

Happy Birthday Jaclynn! Enjoy your holidays!

Happy Birthday YingYi! If you ever read my blog anyway...

My sister is having exams now and is pretty stressed out. I pray and I pray and I pray she'll be fine. All the best in you exams sis!

To everyone else with exams, study hard but don't stress yourselves.

And to those who've finished exams and are in subang/kl area, pls pls pls call me if you have nothing to do. I'm getting bored!

Hah. No, I won't be writing a long script today. No mood and nothing particularly interesting in my mind right now. Maybe next time!

Posted by Gerald at 6/08/2004 11:34:00 AM

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Sorry for long absence of posts. I haven't really encountered anything so far worth blogging about, yet anyway.

Yesterday was, I suppose, an exception. I went to KL, more specifically, Timesquare and Sungai Wang Plaza. Initially, the plan was to play, play and well, play. But somehow we decided against it and went shopping instead. (Can those who know me well imagine me, shopping?) Anyway, I went hunting for PS2 prices (roughly RM580) and Xbox prices (about RM720) I suppose I'm interested in getting a console, but none of them seem to have the same kind of pull to entice me into buying them. The DVD capabilities do have a certain attraction, but that's hardly substantial.

So, me, Sky, Yee Lyn, Lydia, Irene (pronounced IRONY, much to mine) and Kelly (1) were there. We skipped the roller coaster since it costs RM25 per entry per person and we didn't really want to pay that ammount just to ride it. Instead, we spent our time eating. The Teppanyaki restaurant was barely adequate IMHO. We stopped to get pretzels, famous amos cookies, maltose (solid maltose which only Yee Lyn ate I think) and drinks all while shopping in Sungai Wang. The place didn't hold the same kind of thrill I use to have the first time I went there. Probably 'cause I was younger then.

As for dinner was a simple noodles with dumpling combination which tasted pretty good actually.

The one eye opener was that some of us really think alike. I was just surprised to see that Sky would sometimes say the exact thing I was about to say. The most prominent issue was about La La Girls. I suppose I'll give a short comment on this 'phenomenon'.

To MY understanding, a La La Mui (henceforth referred to as LLM) is one who dresses and presents herself in public in such a way that she screams for attention, usually the not so righteous kind. Generally, they imitate fashion from Japan/Korea/HongKong. I suppose there really isn't anything wrong with the fashion, but many people question the need to dress in that manner. The public generally view girls who dress as such as 'loose' and in a manner of speaking, this 'degrades' them. Such views, while may not be entirely right, is what society sees and expects of people. It could be that such dressing is an outright sign of rebellion, but there's also evidence of it being peer pressure. I wouldn't be surprised if these people actually know that they are being frowned upon; they just couldn't care less.

I do also question the right to judge LLMs based on their dressing. It may be wrong to make conclusions about their character based on their dressing. However, first impressions DO count because society is not perfect. The general view of the public is not unimportant or useless. It forms the ideals and thinking of society, and although it may not be entirely right, rebelling against it will only make it difficult for society as a whole to accept an LLM.

Posted by Gerald at 6/02/2004 02:07:00 PM