song for the moment

hmmm

today @ ocf ... i felt this odd sense of not belonging.

and then i was sad - cos i wondered if i had spent the last 2 years simply not-belonging

and wondered if it was confirmation for my decision to get involved in church and out of ocf

then i came home and i was just... lost... for lack of a better word

and then i heard in my spirit

you belong to ME.

ah yes. how could i forget.

what God does to cheer you up

i just had an ultra kuku/ sotong/ blonde/ bimbo moment.

lecture today is at 10am.
i walked in at 9am thinking either that lecture was at 9 or that it was 10 am i dunno.

the thing is that i sat there for a couple of min messaging junli and wondering why everyone looked unfamiliar wondering if it was because today we split and have lecture in two different rooms.. and only realised it was 9+ and not 10 after junli messaged back.

fail. hilarious.

i seem to have this bad habit of building walls when certain things happen

especially when i actually need human contact...

but then i shut up when it's most important to speak up and the moment passes.

and i steel myself knowing that Jesus will take care of it... and life goes on.

but it's all falling apart huh. more so than before. please please don't die on me.

all things egyptian (20/12-23/12/09)

day 5

started off the traveltalk tour and saw all things touristy and egyptian. lots of sand, pyramids (the great pyramid), sphinxes (the great sphinx) and lots of myths and weird stories... like the sea giving birth to the mountain lol.

i climbed the great pyramid - not the steps... the stones... and they were huge. the ones on the base were about as tall as me... and yes i blatantly disregarded the 'no climbing' sign... just like a lot of other people haha. Seeing these things up close was pretty amazing - guess that's why people say that the ancient Egyptians must have been aliens or something
one thing that detracted from the experience were all the 'helpful' tourist touts. for example this guy that i took a picture of asked me to take a picture of him then demanded i give him $10... i gave him 1 EGP (lol. so mean rite.) but i was just so sick of people trying to take money from me in 'legal' ways.

i randomly walked to this part of the ruins in front of the great pyramid and a guy in uniform came chasing after me and wanted to show me around... no doubt trying to get more money -.-this was a tomb - haha there was a sign at the end of the corridor and i would have taken more pictures if not for that guy offering to show me around. maybe they're genuinely kind but ugh. too many $_$ people
got my postcard-type picture of the great sphinx... and a couple more crazy ones which are in yiang's camera unfortunately. then we went back to the hotel to freshen up and off to the overnight train we went. the train was horrible with non-reclining seats but zhen somehow managed to sleep through everything! oh and our poor cabin-mate had food poisoning on the train.... poor thing. at least she had her husband with her...

day 6

arrived in aswan and went off to see the high dam - which was pretty impressive but well. we were in a military zone and it didn't make for very nice pictures. and then we saw the unfinished obelisk from the tour bus window (haha.) cos it just wasn't worth the money to go in... pay 50egp to see a piece of cracked rock? no thanks. after that was the Philae temple... which required a short boat ride to and fro (it didn't have lifejackets lol) and where my camera ran out of battery ohwell.

day 7

woke up early to get to abu simbel like around 3am -.- zzzz. but well... blessed - we were the first bus on the escort so i managed to get a couple of people-less photos! and it was really really really crowded by 7am. caught a photo of transportation (ie. camels) on the way back to the cruise boat then we set sail - which took another 3 hrs of non-motion cos the boat needed repairs lol.

abu simbel's story is actually quite amazing. first the ancient egyptians carved a mountain into a temple such that sunlight hits the back of the temple two specific days a year. and then the modern day people moved the whole mountain so that the temple wouldn't flood cos of the rising water level due to the high dam. cool huh.

managed to get to Komombo just after the sun set... was a bit sick of egyptian history by then. but some of the carvings were really interesting - you can spot the interesting thing in the picture below lol. then we had a 'egyptian party' on board the cruise - which basically involved really interesting 'adult' games and ppl getting high on alcohol and doing weird things -.-"

day 8

woke up early again ugh. but in return got a horse-carriage ride to edfu temple which was probably one of the most interesting parts of the trip. for one, the carriage driver made the horse go really fast and was going 'mustafa! ferrari!' as we overtook the other carriages one by one. haha. and THEN he asked for money -.- ah well. zhen refused to wake up for this one... haha. it probably was a good decision on her part, it wasn't all that fascinating a place... though it was really grand. we then went back to the boat and continued sailing to luxor. ultimate nuaness!

oh man...this is so geeky that i really want it! =P

free first class tickets

yo. anyone want some free first class tickets on a guilt trip? i don't want the ones my parents gave me. =P

weird

we were having some retreat in some hotel... with a lift lobby
and i lent nat's household (who shared a room for some reason) my boardgame at gordon's request. and i left them playing it....

then i got the game back somehow - saw that they had written 'thanks it was fun' and things like that... i thought 'oh ok' and kept the game

gordon came knocking at my door saying 'did you get the game back? did you see their notes?' and *then* it occurred to me - omg what did they write?? and i went to check the game and found that they had written it in PEN and was fuming mad... who the heck writes on someone's new game??? esp after said someone had kindly lent it to them? at this point gordon goes 'to further show our appreciation nat wanted me to give you this' and fished out half a pack of chocolate digestives.. but i ignored him

(i think the scene changed haha)

then the ocfers were meeting in some room... i was walking down the corridor towards the room... alone and feeling really pissed and thinking 'omg that was a new game argh. what idiotic people' and i just about reached the room when i felt someone poke my back - i looked but there was no one there... then poke again - and i looked again... which happened about 5/6 times (now annoyed as well) until i finally caught a glimpse of who it was... kern. and then he darted into the meeting room.

suddenly a bunch of ocfers appeared and went into the room and i was about to go in when yuchian pulled me aside (i guess i had a pissed face on) and started yelling at me cos nat was unhappy that i rejected their kindness 'that is appreciation! don't you understand that?' and i just got angrier and more annoyed and felt more misunderstood as she stood there yelling at me as all the ocfers gaped as they streamed past us.

and all i could say was this strangled 'what appreciation? what idiot calls destroying someone else's property APPRECIATION?' before becoming this sobbing wreck on the floor. then yuchian disappeared into the meeting room and i found myself under the table in foetal position (dunno where the table came from...) on the carpet in the middle of some hotel corridor
.
.
.
and then i woke up properly... and realised that i had actually been crying in my sleep and couldn't feel anything but anger and sadness for a breathless 10 min

gosh. what a way to remember what pain felt like -.-

this grew on me

and *sigh* she's one year younger than me and topping the charts...
i think i'll hold on to the thought that God calls each of us for a different purpose

song for the moment

what God said...

"The real underlying flaw in your life, Mackenzie, is that you don't think I am good. If you knew I was good and that everything - the means, the ends, and all the processes of individual lives - is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me. But you don't."

.
.
.

"... you cannot produce trust just like you cannot 'do' humility. It either is or is not. Trust is the fruit of the relationship in which you know you are loved. Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me."

~The Shack - W. Paul Young

anointed...

from andrea @ kt =)

the red sea (16/12-19/12/09)

the long overdue post of my egypt trip! and this is only from the first 3 days.

Day 1

fly from london to prague -> 4 hour transit in airport -> fly from prague to egypt. conclusion? i really don't like czech airlines =.= BUT it's really awesome tt our flight didn't get cancelled with all the freak-snowy-weather - must be God!
Day 2

checked into a hostel for a morning - cos we arrived at around 6am - just so we could get a place to sleep for a bit before the journey on to dahab. *shrug* the hostel was really decent actually... dunno why we got so many horror stories. would have been fine even if we didn't go on tour i think =). anyway. had free breakfast and headed very suspiciously out into the streets to get a cab to the bus station to get a bus to dahab. everyone was VERY HELPFUL - probably cos they thought they'd get some tips =S.

the very pathetic looking breakfast - but on hindsight... it's standard egyptian fare

managed to get to the bus station with some exciting moments... the unfamiliarity with the money... everyone asking for tips... everyone trying to 'help' - some were genuine haha oops. and then we settled in for the butt aching 9 hr bus ride. and there we got the first taste of a marriage proposal. no camels. just a credit card. - and below we see the courter... and the courted (eww.)
arrived in dahab at almost 10pm, got ripped off by the cab to the hostel, put our stuff down and took a walk to town to get some food, got distracted along the way by shops - promised shop keepers to come back the next day, got named all the asian nationalities in the world but singapore... and finally got round to dinner at 11pm... free salad bread and homous with purchase of meat for 25EGP (~3 GBP)

egyptian cats are so neat! (the way they sit i mean)

Day 3
managed to get a nice photo of the hostel/hotel we were staying in, found an easy way to walk to the town centre (just out the front door instead of the back haha) and went to wander around the beach/cove. it was completely deserted. everyone was out diving/ snorkeling! so we debated on whether to go... but lunch won the round.

rubbish heap in the middle of nowhere!

so lunch won... but it was friday and everyone was at morning prayers... and funny mummy - the restaurant wasn't serving lunch till 2pm... so we had breakfast! the portions were HUGE though... and full of flies and cats. never thought cats were a pest until we were given a bottle of water to squirt at them so they wouldn't steal our food
next up we had a debate - shopping or snorkeling (unprepared... but just thought - we're at the red sea. heck. should probably go right?) BUT shopping won. haha. and by the time we went snorkeling (only zhen) it was pretty late and the fish had all gone into hiding. ohwell.

oh the glamness =P
i can say i went 'swimming' in the red sea. all for the sake of these photos -.-"

highlight of the trip: DINNER! where we spent 80 EGP a person and got a huge fish and calamari grilled with drinks, free soup, salad, homous, rice. ate till the meat and salad plates were completely clean... then went for drinks and sheesha before the bus ride to climb mt sinai

should have done my fish face for this ohwell.
some singlish in dahab
trying out a gangster face... fail rite.

Day 4

11pm on day 2 => 2 hr mini-bus ride to the st catherine area (1am) => 5 hr climb + wait (~6am) -> beautiful sunset, camera runs out of battery somewhere in the first 1 hr of it => use toilet on the mountain (a door and a hole) => 3+ hr climb down where some people were soooooo slow... (9+am) => entrance to st catherine monastery included but we couldn't be bothered to make the walk to get in => had a lousy 'breakfast' and went to get the bus back - but one couple of the party was delayed and we left close to 11am -> got back to the hostel (the poor driver was speeding all the way) - 1220 or so we thought. and went to finish packing and check out... but it was actually 1230! and the bus back to cairo was 1230 = panic = God's grace that we got there in time and didn't forget anything. oh yeah. sleep is for the weak. lol. 9 more hours of butt pain till we got to cairo.

the start of sunrise - beautiful eh.
and the hoardes of people who climbed 14km to see it. and there was this 56 year old brit lady! amazing =)

my cam ran out of batt before the sunlight hit the mountains. ohwell.

big egos

heh. in the midst of writing my introduction for my thesis and looking through the 2 inch stack of readings i've done to get my references as i am writing i just had a thought that academia is really fascinating.

it's a world in which people (big names no less) are pushing their viewpoint, doing research to prove that they are right and that someone else is wrong. and they fight via publications to show a world (that doesn't really care) that what they think is right.

how human. and how pointless.

but that's similar to how we christians fight over different doctrines isn't it?... how so and so's teaching is right and so and so is wrong (and therefore is a heretic??). now that's quite sad -- it's all about Jesus... not about how much you know

Your grace is enough for me

jealousy is a really strange emotion.

no comment

-or rather... i shouldn't comment/ can't comment

read this: http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/12/mm-lees-interview-with-natgeo-transcript/

[edit] provision [/edit]

haha i should call this 'provision to study'

we went to gatwick airport and found that all flights till 3pm were cancelled - next available flight 8th jan 2010. LOL. but london looked so pretty from the train, all white and christmassy (though it's the new year)... and we get full refunds... and i have motivation to do work.

all things work for good =P

provision

flying off to budapest tmr... i happened to check my email - guess what. the flight got canceled cos of bad weather conditions (london stops running once there's a couple cm of snow eh)

@#&%*&#!

either we'd get the free change of flight or get refunded... just that getting it done was annoying (and confusing!). haha. at least i checked my email BEFORE appearing at the airport =P

then i thought, 'ohwell... all things work for good' as i was checking and rechecking the page to see if we could get a change of flight.

it would have been fine to forgo the hostel and bus bookings, just that we'd lose the money for the return flight ... (ouch.) but then if we couldn't change the flight i figured that God was simply telling me to stay in london and do the work i haven't been doing XD.

and praise God... managed to change the flight so i'm off to budapest only 3 hrs later than the original plan, paying a couple of pounds more for transport to a different airport in london =D

15 cups of rice...

12 very full people...
1 kitchen in london...

the plan - initially - was to test out my rusty sushi making skills on a few guinea pigs... but the number multiplied... so by my hand (and quite a few more ppl helping to roll) we got:

1. tuna & cucumber maki
2. homemade tamago using dark brown sugar and egg (and also tamago & cucumber maki)
3. salmon nigiri sushi
4. unagi nigiri sushi
5. tuna nigiri sushi
6. tuna inari... forgot to take photo!

7.onigiri... didn't take this too. (okay onigiri are quite boring objects to photograph)

8.carrot cake (i waited so so long for an occasion big enough to try out this recipe!)

and still more dessert by gordon's hand - caramel bread pudding.

yum. so blessed. (and there was hotpot at liz's place today too... no hope for dieting man!)
in the midst of the festive activity though there was a fleeting thought - wish you were here.. wish i could do this back home..