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Well I took some leave and did a pretty final clean-up of my room and picked up a very nice teak piece from The Helping Hand for $340. I really like the place and will definitely go back there to furnish my future home with stuff from there – plus I get to support a really good ministry which I honestly think we don’t see much when you’re in the more educated world.

Right now I’ve to clear out abit more stuff and move the chesterfield sofa over to the other side of the room. I’m liking it very much now! My mom finished sewing the curtains and they are all hanging from the rails now looking like they need abit of treatment from the steam iron.

No pictures just yet wait till my entire room is really done.

Wow.. I realise I have random photos I haven’t uploaded. Thinking I don’t really want to post alot on the black hole of content that is facebook so here it is!

This christmas is even faster than the last now that I’ve been working a full year before. Its been quite a tiring year for me because I didn’t take many breaks and preparation for my wedding is in basically full gear. I have just a few more things to do and I’m all set to go! I’ve to go for christmas dinner at home! Have a Blessed Christmas this year

Today was a simple day. Me and YX worked.. then we went to decide on what the lunch gown should look like and then we headed over to Marina Bay Sands to meet up with family.

Got some sushi and a chicken leg for dinner, walked around the marina bay gardens thing and then went to Ikea to look for a table. We were really quite late then the staff were literally chasing us down the path to get out. Got a hotdog and some ice cream then it was back home for me! Getting nana to her art class tomorrow morning, gonna be a nice day..

I updated a little on FB that I had a few random thoughts about PRCs, my YX’s gown and ring engravings. Let start with the random:

PRCs in Singapore are really quite a topic. Most people hate them but not all. I just think their stereotyped behaviour (which has quite alot of truth) annoy me but that’s no reason to have the negative sentiment we have toward them. For one they are just a bunch of people who left their land to come here to find a better life. Their loud talking and exclaimations are really quite annoying but thats just who they are. In the same vein, Singaporeans are a complaining, kiasu another word for selfish) bunch and have just as many traits that annoy me. Most posts about them online are quite extreme (think toddler driven over by car.. squashing cute animals with high heels..) but it doesnt reflect mainstream society. Nobody posts “China man gives up seat to elderly on MRT” but that does actually happen. In fact that day I saw bangla (yes, by all means you may condecendingly disapprove of the term) help an old lady carry many bags of groceries across the road + walk with her. Now you might think the Bangla could have followed her to her flat and robbed her but I choose to think better of him. The world’s anicer place like that.

Moving on, yesterday I went down to Tanjong Pagar to get measured up for my tux and choose an evening (lunch) gown with her. I don’t know what the actual wedding gown looks like so DON’T spoil it for me. It was kinda interesting how long and far the journey to our marriage has been and how everything has been provided for. I think I will have fond memories of everything that has gone down so far. Basically we haven’t chosen the gown yet.. but we’re getting there.. haha

The day before on Thursday we put in the instructions for our ring engravings. Since the theme of our entire dating/courtship life has been God’s love personified in each other. It stands to reason that we would have nothing less than the great 1st Corinthians chapter 13 engraved on our rings.

The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have aprophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, bso as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 cIf I give away all I have, and dif I deliver up my body to be burned,Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast” href=”http://www.esvbible.org/1+Corinthians+13/#f1-1″>1 but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 eLove is patient and fkind; love gdoes not envy or boast; it his not arrogant 5 or rude. It idoes not insist on its own way; it jis not irritable or resentful;Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing” href=”http://www.esvbible.org/1+Corinthians+13/#f2-1″>2 6 it kdoes not rejoice at wrongdoing, but lrejoices with the truth. 7 mLove bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, eendures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For nwe know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but owhen the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For pnow we see in a mirror dimly, but qthen face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as rI have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Thats abit too much to be engrave on our rings so we went for a simple name and date and 1 cor 13. It was a tight squeeze but we like it that way.

Lastly, we’ve also done up our invitations now to actually fabricate/print them and address them to the whole load of people we would like to invite. Dinner food tasting is on the 29th November (if i remember correctly) so it’ll be just great!

Its been crazy hot and stuffy everyday just as I was starting to look forward to the cooler end year weather where I don’t have to turn on air con and can wake up to crispy cool air in the morning. As a side note I think I’ve been losing muscle mass and getting flabbier! I lost a couple of kilos but feel more sluggish and fat still. lol..

Been looking at how my life is just a flat line nowadays with so little time at the end of the day. Trying to stretch it and do more stuff only ends up making me dead tired and I crash a few days later sleeping 10 hours a few days in a row and still feeling its not enough. Catching up with sleep and then letting sleep catch up with me again as YX puts it, saving and saving, working, looking forward to simple things like sitting around, eating, walking. All with people whom I’d like to spend time with.

Having less time to yourself makes the important stand out just a little more than usual. I feel like life became abit more efficient after I started working, more out of necessity than want. I still enjoy work, sometime it gets slow, especially when others in the office look troubled. I enjoy actually having a relationship with my colleagues even though it doesn’t get very deep. Last week I was listening in to the a meeting on the other side and it was like

“wah siao! server so many problem.. see lah, every week got dai ji one.. must pray man! what else can we do? need to start weekly prayer meeting again!”

lol.. made me pretty amused.

Another thing that has been on my mind is kinda like what I heard today, that being a minister is not just about acquiring skill sets, counseling techniques and a bag of illustrations and neat teaching tricks. God is interested in character more than any of that. A great (negative) example of that is Samson! so.. I would have said sso much to learn” but for me its more like “so much to change”

Looking forward to the end of the year! and how God can use a broken pot like me. I find it interesting that I can think all this, decide all this and the insides still feel abit slow and depressed. Well, will wait for it to catch up then!

It was a very interesting night up and trying to fix a problem that wasn’t at our end. Still, I’m quite thankful it happened. I had to go down to the data-center at 4am to take a look at the equipment and check that everything is working.

After checking a zillion times I finally got the data-center people to realise that the problem was at their end. I learned many a thing that night that I wouldn’t have ever learned if it were just any other day. Also, I got to stay home after sleeping from 730 to 1230 shiok man.. I still feel like sleeping now.. but work is calling.. haha..

Probably meeting ZG later for lunch if he can get out of bed.

Sometimes when I run out I think “what else do you want from me? I’m Empty. Nothing left for you to take.” Then the better half of my mind insists that there is this infinite grace to tap on. Not to sound calloused or annoying but which idiot made it sound so simplistic?

The idea certainly is simple. Execution of it is not as straightforward, there is just so much flesh in the way. “then get it out of the way la!” you say? I guess everyone has their own demons, only people who have no love and understanding say this kinda things. I know, because I say it all the time.

Sigh. I want a break.

$>exit

My eyes are sooo tired. Other than gluing the boat, changing the maid (thats a whole story in itself) I spent alot of today browsing through jobs online, DBS, Bank of America, looking at the classifieds and still came up with nothing really much. The DBS site has tons of stuff but wading through it is crazy. Applied for one and carry on looking through tomorrow. Shall do a small shoot with William tomorrow at night for our resumes and just stupid stuff like that. Now I’m really quite frustrated already with this. I’m trying to find what I really want to do and all the conflicting interests in my mind just can’t seem to prioritize themselves. I shall list a few.

I love to teach, but its super dead end with regards to doing something else in future and if I go now it almost seems like a first and final career. The starting pay is good but like every govt job the pay stagnates when you get more senior unless you are a high flyer.

I like to take photos and the enquiries here and there from my ads are honestly making me halfhearted when I apply for a stable job because each one makes me feel like photography is feasable. I feel that with enough learning, time and ads I can make it because honestly when I look at what I have to offer I think it is substantial and worth enough money. If I do this every week and every month I will get better and my pay goes up each time. But the bummer here is time.. Most successful photographers take 2 or more years to get a stable pay and not worry where the next job will come. I don’t want to invest time and have it fail. You can say I am scared to fail. Then I will have to start from here again.. where I am currently. I would be older and slightly outdated.

I wouldn’t mind a stable job and a paymaster so I know I have money coming in each month on a certain date and my career moves up and on regularly if I pay attention to it. I don’t need to worry about where the next job is coming or have to be a one man company. I just do the same job, over and over and over again and get very good at it, collect my pay and enjoy myself when I’m not working. Being a guy doesn’t this seem like the safest option? i mean, just after teaching, which I think I will never ever tire of?

How man how? I feel triple minded. All of them call out to me for all the different reasons. I feel so frustrated its like going to explode in my head.

So why am I in a hurry when I can part-time and ad-hoc my way through life? perhaps its multiple pressures from different sources, my desire to move on in life, others’ perceptions. Sigh. Honestly if I were single and staying that way, I think I’d be in very much less of a hurry and go for #2. #3 will surely most desirably preceed #1 but in the end.. I predict #1 will come to pass. I am seriously not

Ultimately, I am chasing money, which happens to be in the way of chasing the rest of my life. I really don’t care what I do, money is just the means. Job satisfaction almost means nothing to me at this point in life. Its just something people complain about because they have nothing else to complain about.

I don’t really know what to pursue.. and its slowly getting to me.

My life has slowed down alot these days. I only manage to do one or two things each day, then the end of the day is here. I don’t get alot of things packed together and I kinda enjoy it like that. Each day passes faster and faster and I seem to be moving in slow motion in comparison. Another thing I’ve noticed is that I mostly get things done before deadlines and though I am still as apathetic towards consequences. I generally get things done early not because I am afraid I will miss the deadline, I am more afraid of all the work converging and getting overwhelmed. The nice side effect of avoiding overwhelming work is well.. getting things done early!

Getting things done early is great. It costs money to do things last minute(think of anything express.. costs much more)! It also usually costs more time and stress, totally not worth it. Nowadays (without planning) I space out my work completion dates around. Staying up today till 3am just to get one thing done early means one thing less tomorrow. And If i stay up till 3am tomorrow, I’ll be thankful I finished whatever I did today at 3am. Things stacking up in the urgent list definitely reduces the quality, speed and efficiency of your work as well.. something to consider.

I currently juggle FYP, project 1, project 2, maintaining a website or two, taking and processing photos, some adhoc jobs here and there. I’ve been blessed to have a photoshoot with some NTU hall committee this sunday afternoon. It’ll be an interesting start to my pseudo side-career as a photographer. Come to think of it, I haven’t been obsessive in finding work and experience as many other successful people I’ve seen on the net.

I need to do a birthday post and all the crazy things that happened but I’m flooded with work. Haha.. I really kinda enjoyed my day. Slow and easy as well. Going off to bed! Going to put back together a lens I cannot completely take apart.. that’s never happened before.. haha.. Borrowing a 105 and 135mm nikon manual lens for some testing for Sunday’s job. Been wanting to get my clarinet back too. Composed a short piece of music for one of my modules and realised maybe I’m wasting away my time on other things. haha.. sigh.. Still haven’t sorted out my thoughts about the christian and music, every hardline point of view seems like nonsense to me and nothing has been truely convincing after 12 years of involvement. I’d like to put up some photos but I think I’ll stick with text for a while.

Besides being all awake at this unearthly hour, its also worth noting that I’m feeling weird all over. I got up at ten but until now just don’t seem to be able to sleep. How torturous is that? So I’m doing some FYP and reading. My mid term break already started and I kinda have quite a few things to hand up after its done.

I wish I could pick up some you tiao and soya bean at this time but I don’t think that’s possible. Had a good lunch, dinner and I think I won’t be awake for tomorrow’s lunch. Sigh. Time’s just running too fast for me to do any catch up. I think I’ve already been overwhelmed without knowing it. haha.. at least it doesn’t feel bad and I have my head screwed on straight.

I think I might also feel like making a life is pretty complicated as opposed to being handed a role and pre-set instructions for everything. Off I go now. Maybe after abit more work my body will fall into line and sleep before the sun rises.