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My photography skills came out of hiding again abit today. ahha.. Cos Joel was there early and pretty much handled the entire day today. I’m so thankful for him.

Oh well, going to get up at 415 to get the van and drive to airport so I can get it to church after. Shall shower and wash up while the photos upload. I’m particularly proud of some of them. Today was a nice day for photos. Some are in uncle buck’s flickr too cos I used his nice 50mm prime to shoot a few photos. Links come when Its done.

Being in the control room, it can be tough and pressurising sometimes. The expectations of us are so high. This is why we must be serious and focused during the cantata. This is a picture of my work area and here are some notes on it.

Don’t let the drawings fool you, its all important! KW can’t find the “Mute/Cut” button everytime (Thats why the phone sfx keeps going on after the actor picks it up) so I had to mark it out with glow in the dark tape.

Ming Yong is the superly important light man. In this picture he’s actually giving a secret eye signal to the light people outside. Also, the finger points to the ones he wants to turn on and off. The board below is operated by his toes, hence the high chair he needs to sit on.

Here kok wing is pretending to be important and more serious than us. We’re already so serious, he purposely wants to make us look bad.

Kok Wing pretending some more

It gets cramped in the control room too. Here is a picture of me stretching over kok wing just to turn up the choir mics. Ming Yong is giving more secret eye signals. With the additional light under the face the same signals can mean different things.

My view..

I hope this helps everyone to realise how stressed and terribly busy we are in the control room. Continue to feed us with sweets and munchy things and be nice to us. Here are the rest of the photos kthxbye.

I’ve been doing a little thinking about how a camp is emotional/not-emotional. However, both of them work together and are not mutually exclusive. This I say, because I think people define what they think abit inaccurately.

Most people say a camp is not as emotional when actually the camp is more like, intellectual. What they really mean was - “The camp stirred my brain more than the heart” or “The camp didn’t stir my heart”. Of course, these statements mean different things (The camp could have not stirred the brain as well the heart) but for the purpose of this post, I will suppose that the message stirred the mind into a decision but the heart wasn’t really moved greatly to the point of tears.

Over the last weeks I’ve felt myself become very open and shut off from God at the same time. More specifically, pastor’s message last week about the lepers and all.. I’d consider myself to be the army hiding in the city. Anyways, I was pretty much touched emotionally, but a day or two after, I couldn’t remember the specifics of the message. This disturbed me because

• I was very very stirred after the message but
• I didn’t remember what it was exactly about so
• What’s the point of being emotionally stirred when you can’t remember what you’re supposed to do about it?

So I went to recall what was said and all so that it wouldn’t be a worthless moving of my heart.

After reading a few posts about the camp being “not as emotional as before” I’d question the interpretation of that being better/worse than before. A better word would be “Different” but most people think it is “better”. I would like to say however, that is is not worse or better, it is “Different” (as christine says) and more accurately, “Same”.

A moving of the mind, without the heart, is as worthless and the moving of the heart without the mind. Moving of both.. seems to be the best.

It brings me back to the story of a man who witnessed an accident and said nonchalently “this guy’s bleeding out, he’s going to need an ambulance”. But when the ambulance arrived and flipped the guy face up, the man realised it was his brother he had watched bleed out without doing anything and cried out “thats my brother!!”. After that emotional outburst, he didn’t stop there and went take action to help the medics. This man, clearly knew what was going on but only moved his mind into action. Once his emotions got engaged, that wasn’t the end of the story, cos it wouldn’t have helped to just be moved emotionally. What really changed his final action and attitude was the moving of both his mind and emotions and taking action on it to go help the medics

Similarly, after this camp as people say “Its not as emotional as before, its better than last time..” Nay, it is not better. Its the same. Only when you FEEL it and KNOW it. THEN you will carry through with it. I say this without criticism to what people might feel but with love, knowing I’ve been there and felt that before and now can look back. It is however, notable that they are a good couple of years younger than me. Which makes me wonder what took me so long.

As Pastor Mike said, “Is the old old story, old to you? If it is, you need revival.” (this is for people who don’t know what the old old story is) Only with the emotional heart and the intellectual mind can a person take action with true conviction and compassion.

Something Theron said during sharing also made me hear myself when I said the same thing just 3 or 4 years ago I think (wow.. I was 19 before). “When you’re close to God the whole year, you won’t feel the camp is like a mountain top experience” or something to that effect. I was talking to ben during the Encountering Christ camp and I told him.. I think I already encountered him. haha.. That said, I need a daily encountering him now. I feel so fallen away.

Lastly, if you’ve gotten this far, I felt like saying “I have nothing good to share” during the sharing with the Surely Saved group. While that could have been accurate, I was more like.. not wanting to open myself emotionally to them. I really just wanted prayer for myself because I was not feeling particularly great about myself recently. Everything seems to be in limbo as far as spiritual things are concerned. “I feel utterly detached from the things of God” was a good enough summary. With the cantata coming up and my desire to be a counsellor instead of being stuck in the control room (hence the reason for Joel to be soundman), I still wonder what I am doing. This constant battle with self is not simple at all. I wish it were a simple as a one time decision.. but is not. Its a daily daily daily decision. In fact, its more like a second-ly decision. I read this year’s birthday post and think.. the need and desire is the same then, and now. What a difference a day makes.. I used to think.. because, within the hour, a man can go from spiritual to fleshly as long as he doesn’t abide with God.

All is talk, until I do something about it.

Cantata 2007 CD Art “No Greater Love” is here.

In the past 48 hours, I have only spent 2 sleeping. My tests were terrible. Couldn’t do much. I really need to study up.

Speaking of which, Joel’s sick and not coming for tomorrow.. plus kok wing in malaysia for some school thing. I guess I’m going to do both jobs cos there doesn’t seem to be any suitable candidate around.. Goodness, I never expected to get this. Thankfully its not that bad la. Spent the entire train trip from boon lay to pasir ris copying annotations from kw’s script. The scary thing is I’m not even done! Haha.. its just chock full of his scribbling. I’m happy this sound engineer guy is coming down. Look forward to learning much from him.

Well, I spent the night from 10pm to 10am sleeping. It was much needed from last 3 days of chionging projects and stuff. I got up,  watched show and packed my room until about 3pm. I guess I kinda wasted quite abit of time la.. but I really needed to pack up. Anyway,  I went down to simlim to buy the mics so david wouldn’t have to.. and then I came back home to have dinner and drove to cantata practise.

Now, the title isn’t referring to my day, but rather.. the practise. It.. was.. slack.. Firstly, it started like.. ultra late. 730 dinner, 8pm start. I came at 750pm and the downstairs just open. The thing started at like.. 820. Next, like so many ppl never come, so many crew never come. Someone din wanna do the full changing of costume and  basically stayed in the same attired throughout although it was a major role (I heard the leg got prob.. but.. to the point of can’t change clothes??) no makeup was done at all (only daphne), and any honest folk would say the acting was sub standard for various reasons that so don’t qualify like “its a weekday..” (again.. like.. the youth have holidays la! very stress ah? wanna try being undergrad or not? and if I not stress, wanna try working or not?). Basically the whole thing was a waste of time and a giant farce. Sigh.

I actually heard that there are people who think there are just too many rehearsals and its very ‘xiong’. Wah.. I don’t believe it! I (and the whole music com) was there since BEFORE the cantata was even born until now - Every step of the way! and david was there even before that, writing music and script. People actually have the audacity to think they are spending alot of time! Honestly, anyone helping out now looks like a joke when compared to the amount of pain and effort behind the scenes.

Think about just the songs, each song I’m sure took at least 1-10hours to conceive, about 5-10 arranging, 4hours piano recording, 12hours voice recording, 1-3hours mastering. And after all that, eunice(sorry I single you out) still sits at the piano each and EVERY practise! That inhumane torture la! If it were me I’d go postal and start to kill people already.

Bottom line.. alot are working hard and get their job done EVERY time without error! these things go unnoticed. So unnoticed.  On the flipside, well.. its just plain apathy, slackness and irresponsibility. Sadly, its the latter which sabo the former into wasting precious time. Is their time more precious than the others? I don’t know. Worse is that the whole thing not say like. very zai or what.. its like.. still shakey. Everyone has this “oh my role so small, dun come also never mind.” KNS, You dun come ppl have to do for you leh! Thats like.. negligence la!

If you sign up for it, you better be there and get your job done! And if you wished you didn’t sign up for it, don’t do it next time! Whats worse than no help, is unwilling help. Its a pain. Annoyance and pain. The body is a whole lot better without a big leg which shows up and does nothing and worse, gets in the way cos its not doing its job and force other people to do their work, might as well cut it off.

For those who think “wah.. so fierce, I sign up help already still kena scolded” You think God needs your help? Sorry man, you over-rate yourself. If you didn’t notice, he could stage the whole thing without us. Next thing I’ll hear is “okay loh.. next time I dun help already..” Then don’t! cos like.. I really question why you even want to help if such a statement puts you off. Who are you working for? Why do you do it? you pity us ah? We music com every 2 years have to beg for help one.. sorry, again, God will find a way to finish the job, with or without our intervention.

Lastly, after all that. I’d like to say I’m very happy with joel (since he will never read this I can say here) . He’s always there, he’s always learning, he’s got initiative. So much so I’m almost shocked at being so free. I thank God for finally giving me a replacement, not cos I’m tired of my job, but because I am free to do more. Being out there during the invitation (which i think Joel will grow into one day) and being able to sit outside to hear and to truely adjust the sound properly is totally priceless. From the sound room i still remembered seeing the hands on the second night. There were so many that I started to tear, and I was thinking of Luke 10:1-10 and in specific

Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.

Luke 10:2

That summarised it to the letter. I wish I could be out there.. if just for one person to hear and understand the gospel better - but I had to sit inside to take care of the system (which if there was a failure would be even worse.. nobody would hear..). There were so many there but we were faithless and unbelieving.. and we missed out on a great harvest. How many who raised their hands are still lost today? That wrong, is on us. Let us not take forgranted that God will always be there and he will always work.

I feel I’ve gotten careless because Joel’s been covering for me and for that, I think I need to really get back into the game and stop looking so free. I wonder if people think I so free then they also can be so free thats why the whole level of the commitment seems off? Maybe its on me/us. The fact is, I’m really quite free and things still get done. Hmm. I guess you can tell I’m really quite upset but.. I really think its just such a “take for-granted everything will run smoothly” attitude. Lets banish that thought.

Today’s practise was very smooth. Joel seems to be doing fine at my job. Hopefully I’ll be able to totally relinquish it. Feel like so tired of it. Glad I can sit outside and adjust the sound by telling someone to do it. Last time must run in and out, in and out. There seems to be a greater trust among the different departments (mostly) and everyone leaves everyone else alone cos they know everyone else knows what they are doing (save for a few) and takes time to do it. I can’t stand it when people tell me how to do my job or be captain obvious.. like.. hello? fei hua! of course got problem with the sound la! what do you think I’m doing now? This used to very common the last 2 cantatas but suprisingly I got only one “captain-obvious” comment today. Hopefully everything gets better when the mics are taped up.

Just past this bit of code over here into the sidebar of your blog.

By my sister’s request, I think I shal make a few cantata banners with the HTML to paste into your blog sidebars and whatever not la.. I’ll have it up in a couple of hours to days

While I do like to keep a record of what I do, its honestly getting abit too.. unspectacular. Its like a daily description of activities. Haha.. like

• 1100-1400hrs: Recording and lunch with david and eunice
• 1400-1500hrs: Walked around whitesands, borrowed library books on color and design
• 1500-1820hrs:Finished up most of buck’s site for real this time
• 1823hrs: find out I have project assesment on monday

Okay, now I’m freaking out. This time the mini project is like triple crazy hard la! I shall now go work on it. Boo… how to finish like this………… die already la.

Anyway, bass sets the finish time at 2hr15min for “Grace Each Day Renewed”. The altos have 1hr15min to do the second pass.. I think this one lose already la. Haha..