21st!

Yes. I am one year older as of today. I chose not to have a mega celebration and invite all my friends but decided to stretch it over a few days and have nice long dinners with my friends at the expense of my belly =/

Anyways, thank you guys for spending my birthday with me and all the well-wishers! This is certainly my most crowded birthday thanks to Facebook. Hahas.. I bet I am the happiest and most blessed man today =)

Thanks to Jedit for the Joystick, Pinnice for the book, Cheeks for the messenger bag and Pam and Shu Juan for the cupcakes. Love all the presents! Hahas.. I feel so so SO loved!

I went to CityLink/Esplanade/Singapore Flyer together with Pamela and Shu Juan. We went to watch Esther perform at the Esplanade Concourse. Wahh.. Zai. If I can sing like that I will go and sign up for Superstar and become a Taiwanese pop star. Hahahas..

We spent the next half an hour trying to decide where to eat because we realised that Esplanade is devoid of good and cheap food =/ Ended up going for Popeyes' for their chicken!

Then we went up the Singapore Flyer since I've never taken it before (sua gu!) It was beautiful to see Singapore from up there. Yes, there was loads of construction going on, but Kallang Basin looked great. Plus the HDB flats going as far as my eyes could bring me was breathtaking too. Little did I know that the normally boring looking blocks could look so iconic together. I also remember thinking that I want to live in Pebble Bay when I have the money to buy an apartment there. It looks so striking and peaceful from up there!

After flying, we basically went for some drinks at Glutton's Bay and cabbed home. Thanks for the cupcakes girls!


Then came Thursday where I had KFC at my auntie's house for Mother's Day cum My Birthday cum My Auntie's Birthday celebration. Hahas.. I think I gained quite a lot of pounds from that meal man. There was the chicken, the watermelon, the cake, and red bean soup! Luckily it didn't turn out to be a KFC + Pizza Hut thing as planned. If not I will have to start thinking of going for liposuction to get rid of the fats le.

On Friday, JEDIT went to Timbre to celebrate. Overrated I say. The ambience wasn't really there, plus there was no real lights so we had to use their fake candles to see the menu. Bleh! Plus the steak was quite horrid. But I still had fun lah. It's not the place but the people mah. Thanks for the joystick guys!

We went to Cathay after Timbre for Ben and Jerry's ice cream in the hopes of finding the same green tee shirt girl we saw on Enqing's birthday. But no such luck! The two girls that day were quite cui. Hahas..

On the way, we saw the Nissan 350Z outside Cathay! Quite impressive. I like the colour.. Perhaps when (if) we get the Honda Jazz, we can spray it this colour!

Of course, there was the mandatory Dota session. Unfortunately AM didn't do so well that day. Hahas.. Oh well!

So that was about all. Thanks again guys! It was really really fun =D

可不可以爱我

在上教会的德士上听到的一首歌。觉得他的音色挺特别的。听听吧！

在此点给暗恋米兰的猪先生=)

Pillaged

There are good days on MouseHunt, and then there are bad days. Today is a bad bad bad day. My Maki cheese is running out, but still no sight of any Student of the Cheese Claw mice.

Looks like it's time to upgrade to a Zugzwang.

Nuah.

It's Friday! And I haven't worked out for the longest time. I can feel the strength sapping away from my body together with the endorphins. Ever since the gym session on Monday
- which wasn't much to speak of - I haven't lifted a single finger. Worse yet, I had cupcakes and Popeye's Chicken on Wednesday, KFC and cake yesterday, and I'm going to Timbre for more food tonight! All the hard work down the drain =/

That said, the past 2 nights have been quite fun. Hopefully tonight would be fun too! *ahem*DOTA!*ahem*

Spiritual fats?!

"Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us" Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)

"Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins." Hebrews 12:1b (MSG)

Dr Khoo preached on this verse last Sunday and taught how we should "throw off the weight that hinders". I got reminded of it while writing yesterday and thought how apt it is in my endeavour to lose weight. When I went to check up The Message, it says, "start running--and never quit! No extra fat". Wow. Amazingly prophetic.

So now my new exercise motto is: "Keep running, never quit, no extra fat!"

Okay, jokes aside, I wanted to talk a little about it because I was quite impacted on Sunday.

1. "Surounded by a great cloud of witnesses"

When I first read it, I thought it to mean non-believers. Jesus calls us to be the salt and light of the world, and to influence the people around us by our own exemplary action.

That of course, reminds me of the AWARE saga which portrayed less than exemplary acts by Christians. Usurping the exco positions of an association is hardly making positive impact, I feel. Oh wells, as the old axiom goes, "to err is human, to forgive divine". Now that everything is over, I just hope that people don't think that all Christians are homophobic and dogmatic crusaders. After all, Jesus taught us to love the sinner and hate the sin right?

I then realised that the great cloud of witnesses can apply to believers as well. What you do actually directly affects others in the church as we learnt in Youth Group on Sunday. Frankly speaking, I've been drifting away for a while now.. choosing to Laugh Proudly in the Pugilistic World. Hmm. Somehow it does affect how I operate at church or normally too..

2. "The sin that so easily entangles"

That can easily mean any sin. The Message calls it "parasitic sins" and Dr Khoo used the same term too. Anger, pride, striving, neglecting the welfare of our bodies.. Hmm. I would say that I am in a stage of my life right now where I'm taking care of my body. Haha.. And since nothing much is happening, I have nothing much to be angry about. Every day seems to be the same routine. I should start to think about quitting at the end of May. =/

3. "Run with perseverance the race marked out before us"

I take that to mean life. The Christian life, to be more exact. Hm. Well.. I still have a long way to go, and there are so many things that I want to do, so many places that I want to go. The thing is, often things don't go the way that I want it to go and we are often at the mercy of circumstances. To run with perseverance means to not be deterred by whatever that comes my way, but really just take it in stride.

I learnt something new at kayaking last Saturday when I was rowing on a K1. For the uninitiated, that's a single boat that is quite thin, making it quite difficult to balance. I have been rowing in the fatter Tourers for the whole of my JC, and I decided to try out K. So we were doing the triangles and I soon approached Benjamin Sheares Bridge which is a choppier part of the Kallang Basin because of the Duck Tours and the dragonboats going in and out..

The thing I learnt is, the more I stop to try to balance myself, the more unbalanced I am. In life, the choppier the sea is, often the best thing to do is really to just move forward regardless. Because the world will not stop spinning because you stopped. Only by moving forward can we overcome the difficulties that come our way. And the big waves are not so big anymore.

Philosophical eh?

Well, that's about all for today. Better get back to work. Hahas.. Ciao!