i have survived...

one of *those* weeks.



Daddy... Jesus... hold me and never let me go...

right-o

i am supposed to be doing work...
therefore i am blogging (again.)

i just took 1 1/2 hrs to clean the kitchen + corridor by myself! i feel accomplished... and i think we need to set a new house rule to sweep the kitchen twice a week -.- yucky...

charity is really tired...
and somewhere in between healthy and sick
and beginnining to think it's somthing of a spiritual attack
1x nose that's acting up + scratchy vocals... when OCF christmas outreach is coming up
oh and there's a lot of work (but there's always a lot of work lol.)
i do believe my spirit's broken - probably yday's fault. tsk.

=(

but actually really blessed... with good friends..
with my walk with Daddy... i must say bashing through the passage every week with the Holy Spirit on my side is really uplifting... though time consuming
and work's been really smooth. blessed - my first counted grade came in... 72 for my 1st lab report... done under high pressure with all the OCF commitments. God is faithful. no?

more crazy schedule ahead (night events & deadlines):
1st dec - leaders cell
4th dec - stats test
5th dec - prayer & praise for OCF
7th dec - christmas outreach
8th dec - leaders cell
8th dec - 2nd lab due
10th dec - 3rd essay due

man... i really really need to feed... can pengsan just looking at what i have to do.

OCF retreat 2008

we arrived at sunbury court on friday night...
and that's when the stress started (no i'm not kidding.) haha. cos i was backup for hannah who was worship leading... and i had to set up the sound stuff and projection stuff and all... while people were milling around waiting for things to begin =P. a good start to the camp though... cos i really didn't want worship to end once it began... Daddy was there =).
then there was some admin stuff.. some icebreakers and intro to the speaker... and we were done for the night - except that we ate supper, didn't go to sleep and played kempt... and the ninja game (check out the vids!)

the survivors

saturday... was a Beautiful Day

again though... as worship I/C... and one of the head cooks i was chionging around. but it was really blessed... cos it was a chill-chiong... if that makes any sense. i wasn't worried about stuff, just did everything (and there was A LOT of stuff to do). worship prac and projection in the morning, then went off to prepare lunch for 2 hrs... (really paiseh that the two groups helping had to miss the session)... then it was lunch and serving lunch... and doing random things on the field haha... then it was more worship stuff for the afternoon session, then when people went to play games it was prac for the night session... and then when everything was over it was prac for the sunday session! lol. by the end of sat i got to do some crazyy things... like at 3am in the morning lol. extended worship, some sharing... and well.. bob. hehe

i say my cartwheels are the prettiest! lol but based on the competition i'm the slowest lah.

albert my saviour! haha who helped drag huge baking trays out of the oven for me and who could actually tell when things were cooked so i could go settle worship stuff yuchian the other backup singer for eugene... yay 3 part harmony =) take #01: bob the big taboo guy forgets his lyrics

take #05: bob the big taboo guy doing an impersonation of kermit the frog

sunday... chill day, kinda. once the session was over it was just clean-up... and taking photos... and more random things... talking to the speakers (so cool lah... to be 80 and sharp!) and having to pack up the ton of electronics i brought to retreat for the projection stuff. heh.
valerie the speaker's wife

what did i take away from it? a lot i guess.. in the way of serving out of rest. the speaker was really good i must say... though i didn't quite agree with some of what he said - all in all well fed *mmm*

...

that said... i had the most shitty day today -.-"
woke up early to condemnation for some reason (perhaps cos i intended to do work even earlier but didn't??) and it was to the extent that destructive thoughts were swimming around my head... horrible. i think i might have succumbed at some point if i had gotten up =S

therefore.
i went back to sleep...
and skipped all my classes today...

and woke up to a different kind of condemnation... cos it was by choice that i skipped lessons... and it wasn't even to do work... therefore i could hardly bring myself to do any work... though i really needed to.

wahlao... talk about a lousy day...and gosh the power of guilt =S but now reaching the end of the day... i'm back to chill mode... not really caring about work (after 1 prayer, 1 hr of talking to Daddy, some cui guitar playing & worship)

guard my heart... indeed.
from never forgetting that Daddy's the one in control... who prospers my studies... and it's not about what i do or don't do.

day 5 - prague (5/11)

started off the morning with a slow-ish breakfast... packed our bags and checked out of the room (awww.) then left to find the dancing building... where we were inspired to take strange photos!

er... i thought in dance it's supposed to be one guy and one girl... they coordinated colour by mistake.. therefore it was worth a shot, since the building was a girl and a guy too =Pthe two flower girls -.- reminds me of chinese dance daysanother ballet position attempt: everyone's carriage very ugly tho.

after that was a long walk to the shopping belt... (and i actually bought something lol. amazing right?) prague... was seriously pretty... we just kept stopping to take photos with random buildings. i think the whole style of prague makes for very nice photo compositions!

i really wanna try absinthe one day... =P
fake blue skies - by my camera colours... cos jilyn was saying her sky was nicer than mine... roses are red =) i love this photo! and it inspired everyone to take an emo shot (take 1 failed cos gordon was smiling)

we spent the day wandering around the area... and went to some cafe off the main street. food = good! very good in fact, they had a platter thing to let people try all the kinds of pudding (bread, bacon, potato) with various forms of meat (roasted, cured, stuffed) yummy *drool* and lunch took uh... 2 hours haha.

after lunch was more shopping! we wandered around and found this market type belt of souvenior shops... and cos they didn't have a real shop the prices were quite a bit cheaper! heh... had to change more money, calculate the money so we wouldn't have too much left over, calculate again to make sure we had enough for the train to the airport, calculate again cos people needed to get dinner -.-" haha. dinner was chinese food (better than london. again. tsk.) and then we were rushing off to the airport to catch the flight home.

we bought tic tac... to get rid of cents! lol my zi pai has improved!
tsk gordon... dun bully girls leh
gordon says: i love prague!
time to k.o.
and before we know it we're back in london =)

satisfied? very.

...

and i realised i had to rush out the holiday posts cos this weekend is OCF retreat... and there'll be more photos to post! (hopefully i won't be too busy coordinating worship).

my week's been crazily busy... no time to think... just do work, do admin stuff, settle av for worship stuff, talk to people... fulfilling though. and interesting... that in leaving all the OCF stuff i have to do to Daddy, it's really quite chill though i'm managing a lot of things and people.. and rather effective & efficient too! hmmm... now the next challenge is to do that with life. pray for me to have a revelation of that regarding school... hehe. next up is christmas outreach... in which the week coincides with the dates of my stats exam, one essay, and one lab report. go me.

day 4 - prague (4/11)

so we reached prague at an ungodly hour... and spent a fair bit of time trying to get to the hostel. managed to get on the metro to the right station... whereupon we took 6 escalators (or more) up and down cos there weren't overground crossings and we were simply confused. still we found the place... and the room we were given was huge! (awesome start to the day!)

one of the many escalators we went up (and down) on

boys hard at work: navigation
girls hard at play: slackers
the first half of our room (with 2 beds, toilet and a kitchenette)
2nd half of the room (5 beds... and a dining table)

we dumped our stuff... and took a well-deserved shower. woohoo! (the train cabin was sooo hot! we were sweating and mark was smelling like mark... ya... well. i actually opened the train window outside the cabin and left the door open for 30 min waiting for the room to cool down =S) then headed out again for the walking tour mark booked.

vintage car!!!! *drool*the town square
the famous astronomical clock (which i couldn't figure out how to read)
'x' marks the spot where someone died... and they all died at the same time 0_o
gunpowder tower... deserves some army pose.
london?
cubism architecture!... rox lah.

oho. i was kuku here (at the river). i tripped over this bit of pipe sticking out of the ground... and then while stumbling out of balance, slipped on a bit of rock, protected my camera (by twisting sideways), stuck a hand out (which slipped too) and landed splat on my side... in the order of - hand, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee... basically sprawled out. ugh. unglam. at least lunch was almost right after and i got to wash up... tsk. ohoh. ya we ate chinese food! and it's better than london's food by far!

ghost of christmas past? (don quixote)
patronised this shop... it was kind of like a cinnamon sugar roll thing... yummy =)we got bored waiting for the guide... and compared legs... guess who's jilyn and who's huixuan!
enormous birdcage + bird?

when the tour ended we just stayed in the area taking a multitude of photos... goodness... i think we spent 1 hr doing nothing but take photos... i must say prague is one of the prettiest places i've seen... some amazing architecture! it's kinda like italy with a different style... and a very laid-back feel. awesome.

gordon attempting the 3rd arabesque attitude... and looking like... i dunno.
emoness... i love the way the benches and the windows go together
more giordano shots!
gordon requested an emo shot... amazing
don't do it mark! life still has meaning!
heh... red stripey guy with red camera...

we tried to look for a museum of miniatures to no avail... we only found the toy museum... so... well. another wrong guide book thingy of the trip. so we took more photos! haha. and decided to go shopping before dinner as we walked past a lot of souveniour shops during the walking tour.
dinner was pretty amazing... goulash and bread pudding... among other things *drool* - from this cafe/pub place recommended by one of the shop keepers. awesome... (awesome enough that we didn't take any photos! too hungry and too yummy lol.) though the waiter was kinda rude (maybe he didn't know the nuances of english...)... but that was something we got throughout the trip... either treated very well... by some really kind people... or just ignored half the time and made to wait for everything and not served very well. ohwell.

then it was back to the main square for the free ghost tour - where our guide wasn't very scary, was applying to go to ucl the next year, and had a really good accent compared to our guide in the afternoon who pronounced charles as 'chalice'

the square at night...charles' bridge... which we all thought was chalice bridge until we saw a sign -.-"

and here we met some interesting souveniour shopkeeps... who wanted to learn chinese from us and who were trying to teach us a bit of spanish and czech! and then it was back to the huge-ass room to wash up and sleep (i think we all slept really really well...)

first impression of prague: awesome!

day 3 - krakow/ train to prague (3/11)

and the day dawned foggy... very. perfect auschwitz weather -.-"
we went to the castle as planned - cos the guidebook said that there was free entry on mondays (which was also why we were chionging both auschwitz and the salt mine the day before). took a lot a lot of photos along the way... cos the fog was such inspiration for emo photos heh. and well... free entry = happy

me + wall + river + fog = emogordon's contemplative look
chinese female ghost + uh. man thing.
tell me. what do you see beyond this wall...
look we're at the castle!i love the expression on gordon's face! (this was taken wrongly... haha but it's more funny than the proper one!)testing the macro function on my camera... but i still can't get the effect i want half the time (like now.)
flower girls~ castle grounds in the fog (depressing rite!?)

BUT when we got there we found that cos of the seasonal change, the free entry day was sunday as of 2nd november 0.0 and that it was closed for one day a week - *ahem* monday. so it was wasted =(. ohwell. most castles look the same i'd imagine... but i was looking forward to seeing the armoury... and so pek chek that we planned properly and it didn't work out. at that point everyone was pretty annoyed (and i was praying that the rest of the day would turn out well) but no choice... so we went to the cathedral (which was the only thing open), climbed the bell tower, then headed off for lunch.

gordon needed to go meet our taxi driver to get his specs between 2-5 and get back so we could catch the train... so we attempted to rush so we could eat together. but that didn't happen lol. cos we walked through this nice park stretch... and were inspired to take photos! (i guess krakow is really a pretty place... just that there's nothing much to do)

jilyn's hungry! (as usual...)wow... autumn leaves... (and the colour accent on my camera)this is SUCH a JILYN pose!!!!!!emoooo (i really like the composition though, lampost and tree)contemplative?

so we finally got to the main square.. after taking photos for close to an hour! and were inspired.. to take even more photos... with a head. granted... it was the signature sculpture for the square

the head + mark's head

and then gordon had to run off... and we went for lunch as one of the local cafe 'economy rice' type places. after that, we didn't know what to do cos the most touristy thing left to do was closed...

mark decided (and tried to convince us) to go to this soviet town thingy... which required 1 hr of travelling time... and the tourist center person(s) all made faces when he mentioned it! kind of 'uh well... there's nothing there really, but if you're the kind tt likes to wander around, well no harm going'. he did in the end... alone.

us gals went to eat ice cream & shop for souvenirs. the ice cream was pretty good... but the no-smoking section was still really smoky! and we came out smelling like oil (from lunch) and cigarettes... like we were chain smokers. haha. the rest of the shopping time was spent freezing as we opened all our coats to try to let them air. heh. awesome time buying souvenirs though... cos there were some really nice quaint wood carving shops and stuff. after all the drama, we met back at the head at 530pm and exchanged stories over dinner.

back together again!

guess what?! gordon had the most exciting story!
he caught the bus 2 min before it left... took photos with some random guy who was following him and was excited (to see an asian maybe?)... met the taxi guy and got his specs back (and took another photo)... and make it in time to get the next bus back. and met this lady who could speak english and was an educator... (and took another photo. lol.) so i guess he learnt the most in the day trip. mark on the other hand was wandering around lost until he found a couple of signs lol.

dinner was at the chicken place again... then we went to get our bags and board the train to prague.

deceptively large on the outside
amazingly cramped on the inside!taken from well... i was kinda balancing on the 2 bunks

i took the top bunk... which i found comfortable... but i was really quite thankful for my flexibility... so i could just fold over if i needed to get stuff rather than rolling/ squirming around to turn on the bunk. smacked my head a couple of times on the light though (but everyone was knocking their heads on the higher bunks anyway)

uber exciting day! talk about new experiences man...

we kept watch in shifts, so i got to do 1 1/2 hours of quiet time during mine =) *awesomeness* and i had quite a good sleep throughout too =) though interrupted. at least i didn't get the graveyard shift... the guys volunteered to do it =P