I feel like I'm barely at home these days. I can't even remember the last time I ate at home.

So I went with Grace and Riz to catch seven deadly scenes last Friday. Well actually, three deadly scenes is more like it, only because I was the source of our lateness, which resulted in the bouncers not allowing us in until the intermission.

Riz and I got off to a rather bad start. After spending an hour waiting for us to arrive, he was understandably pissed, Grace was apprehensive, and I was all of the above AND guilty. It was so tensed in the car you could slice through it with a knife harhar. But it's ok, we're buddy buddy now after a nice banana leaf session and some touring around Bangsar.

Anyways, I was feeling quite shitty when we got there and THEN to make it worse the bouncers made us wait some more till the intermission. And Shern had to rub it in and tell me I missed out badly on the other four scenes. Tried to trick me into coming with Jess the next day but oh howdy no thank you very much. One of the reasons I don't really go for plays as much as I want to is because it takes about 2 hours just to get there by public transport. By the time you get there, all the enthusiasm you might have had initially would have been replaced by irritation and tiredness from all the travelling.

So after the very short no-value-for-money play, things picked up. We went to Riz's famous Nirwana banana leaf (note to everybody: Only go there if you're a big fan of bitter gourd. haha!), where we sat beside a rather cute guy with a rather cute Aussie accent who offered to take a group picture for us and then reminded us to post it up on facebook, which probably will never happen unless those two decide to get off their dusty butts since I don't believe in personally posting pictures on facebook ;p




And then we went to Starbucks, where I claimed my free coffee (Thanks Riz, now all you owe me is chocolate cake ;p hahahahha jk larr) and fooled around with his darling Fedora with a capital F.





And when Starbucks closed, Riz brought us on a walking tour around Telawi. At one point we were chilling at the roadside in front of the deserted castle and guess who walked up! Aha.

And then we went back to Grace's place where she and I had an all-night chat session. GAWD it felt good just to talk to an old friend like that again. I miss her. And I'm definitely staying over at her place more often.

And then she finally went to mandi at 7am while I collapsed on her bed. After some intermittent sleep, Ivan came and we went to the Gardens, where more photo-taking ensued.



And then because I got home late, I missed carolling and went to YAF's christmas party instead.

So that was my weekend that was.

Christmas was awesome too! The musical that GHM put together was spectacular. When I see how big a music ministry we have at church and how much potential we have to grow even further, I can't help but feel proud of my home church. I'm so thankful that we've got a senior pastor so open minded and willing to incorporate all sorts of things into the different ministries, and I realize how blessed we are to have the whole jingbang of traditional Malaysian intruments at our disposal, some of which we don't even know the name of. I WISH I played some sort of orchestral instrument so I could get involved in the orchestra, but sadly I don't.

Looking at the young ones playing the angklong yesterday, it brought back memories of my time in GHM and how I too used to play the angklong, and the xylophone! ahaha. I remember the white satin outfits and oh man, those golden hair sanggul thingys with the pointy flowers lovingly made by some of the aunties I think. They had to make hundreds of them. What a labour of love. I ALWAYS had a problem with those sangguls because I had short hair and the bun wasn't big enough to hold the sanggul combs. Anyways... yeah. And those selendangs with gold patterns. Mine was always pink! Man I regret the fact that I don't have any pictures of me in that era because we didn't have digital cameras then, and my parents weren't particularly photography-prone. Oh and we lost our analog camera too and were cameraless for a few years.

I miss those years! And i really do miss playing the angklong. And the xylophone. And i miss the practice sessions!

But I'm proud of how the ministry has grown, and it was just such a joy to witness the little hands vibrating the quaint little angklongs and the bigger hands handling the hugeass double bass and the other string instruments. I would love to get involved again if I had the time, but I really doubt it.

So that was Christmas at church.

Then I took a step of faith and drove to Jess' house in the jungle WITHOUT GETTING LOST (applause please), where I discovered another connection to Grace and Riz. Man the world is sho schmall!

And then on the way home I got lost in some Malay area but got smart and turned back on the right track, and then at night we had a nice barbeque at Kim's.

Christmas was awesome. Looking forward to next year!

I received something in the mail today. It's always really nice to receive letters without an official company logo cos then you know one of your friends have decided to go old skool and use snail mail. Sadly that doesn't really happen always so everytime I get concrete handwritten letters or cards in the mail, I treasure it loads and keep it away nicely in that shoebox upstairs.

So today, I got one in an envelope which said:

Skinny Su Ling
*address*

Hahahh...Who does that la come on. Like kindergarten small kid like that! hahaha... So anyway, I opened it and surprise surprise! It's a Christmas card from PampamSoo!

Pammy, Thanks heaps! And I miss you!! And you probably don't see me around church when you're back cos I'm always upstairs! And yes I'll seriously consider your SIA invitation if you send me more cards and postcards from everywhere around the world. A couple of boxes of chocolates won't hurt too.

And Pam, Merry Christmas! And I normally don't do birthday shoutouts on my blog but for you, HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYYYYY!!!! *hugs* Come back soon so we can go BBQ plaza again! ;p

Ok I know I'm always one or two weeks behind everybody else when it comes to blogging fresh news, but I want to join in the picture-posting fun too!

Faces at camp:

The above took me quite some time to do so you better stare at it long and hard and make sure you memorize every face.




Apparently there was quite a number of flies at the campsite.
Resident fly-catchers:




The mummyIwannagohome!! faces:




Every year, there's someone with the same baju as me. last year it was this.


And this year, THIS

What to do! I have such great taste in clothes...

FUYYHHH... Checkout our resident hot chick. I need ice!!



Guys, you want her number, just ask me. No need shy shy ;p

These are my roomies.

We call ourselves the spice girls: a result of Joanne's sudden epiphany one night, followed by the official naming of the different spices accompanied by stomach-aching laughter.

Clockwise from left: Chilli, Cinnamon, Ginger, what-was-I-again, and STAR ANISE!! ahahaa...

Absolutely loved bunking with them. Such a fun bunch of people. Especially with Joanne around. I tell youuuu... that womannn, all we ever do is laugh laugh laugh and listen to her Vietnam-ness. ahah.

Everybody wants a picture with the spice girls of course.



And this child prodigy, Samuel, is only 12 but he can solve a Rubik's cube in less than 45 seconds! He's the MAN i tell you.



I thought this year's camp workshop was really good, especially sis Rita's one. It was really encouraging to see the young ones wanting to know more about God and responding to the spirit. It was awesome to see them so on fire at that young age. And it really made my day to hear someone say they enjoyed camp. When you hear that, and when you see with your own eyes how God touches so many lives, when you see the youth crying out and asking for more of God, every minute spent labouring and preparing for camp becomes worth it.

I had to remind myself again, that was the reason why I do what I do. It's tiring and it's hard, but when you see with your own eyes God moving among the crowd and feel Him in your heart, you truly understand the phrase "the joy of serving".

I wish God moves like that every day of my life. Yet I know I don't spend enough time with Him. Nor am I as passionate about Him as I want to be. And that's what I want to work towards for the coming year. To be more in tune with Him and to love Him with all my heart. Not to wait for a year-end camp to be all fired up again.

Every year at camp, there is a refreshing of spirit. The young people go, scream their hearts out for God and jump with all their might during praise and worship. But how long will that passion last? Is that fire going to continue burning throughout the year or will it die out eventually, only to be reignited at the next year's camp, after which the whole cycle will be repeated?

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8

TNT the world babeh!!

, sent 12/14/2008 11:40 PM:
tests were meant in the beginning to train ppl to work in the factories
, sent 12/14/2008 11:40 PM:
and later becme ways to try to efficiently tell if thousands of students could be good workers
, sent 12/14/2008 11:40 PM:
but now, the world is made of ppl who no longer work for work
, sent 12/14/2008 11:41 PM:
but for love and dreams and challenges
, sent 12/14/2008 11:41 PM:
but the tests remain
, sent 12/14/2008 11:41 PM:
any system right now, education or govt or health
, sent 12/14/2008 11:41 PM:
require a major overhaul
, sent 12/14/2008 11:41 PM:
and not of the system itself
, sent 12/14/2008 11:41 PM:
or even the policies
, sent 12/14/2008 11:41 PM:
but the values and principles tat drive and operate those systems
sulingee says:
in other words, kdu's education system sucks?
, says:
and like the small plants and flowers tat grow upwards while the mighty strctures crumble around them
, says:
small pockets of ppl who see the future, will slowly and patiently help others around them learn to see too
, says:
so that then the dust settles and the chaos quitens
, says:
quietens
, says:
the ppl are ready to grow and reach for the sky and sun
, says:
lol, which system this world right now does not
, says:
there is a revolution going on
, says:
not of guns or even money or scientific brekthrus
, says:
but of the human heart
, says:
all these things that make ppl think thhe world is going crazy and will end
, says:
are only signs of the falling of the old, and the eventual rise of the new
, says:
but we only know how to see the cracks, but we can also learn to see the saplings within those cracks
, says:
does that make some sense to u? lol
sulingee says:
i'm gonna copy and paste this for some other day when im in the right frame of mind to sit and internalize your words


Fellow classmates, guess who I was chatting with on msn... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAH.

I realize my sister and I have a standard greeting everytime I walk into the house while she's vegetating in front of the tv.

Me: Hey pig

Sis: PigKO!

Me: *smiles discreetly*

Today I went to church early and wore this bright green top and black slacks. I have this other tee of the same shade. And whaddoyouknow, without telling me she was gonna steal my clothes as she's highly prone to do these days, she coolly wore MY shirt and MY pants, in the exact same shade too. So she ended up looking EXACTLY like me, as if we don't already look terribly alike.

Great minds think alike? hehehehe...

And thanks to her wonderful choice of clothes, Ps. Betty thought she was me. LOLOLOL.

My sisterrrrr... *rolls eyes*

I call her my irritation. But I can't live without her. heh.

The laughing post

This

is when they decide to play dress-up.

This



is how they normally look.

Say your last goodbyes to me. I'm gonna be butchered soon.
LOL.

I am sometimes amazed at how innocent i am and how unschooled i am in the ways of this world.

So I was reading old news again yesterday night and i read about Robert Raynier (i think that's his name, im not good at remembering details heh) and there was this list about his reads. And I was quite excited to find that he reads books that i've either read or want to read. Tolstoy and catch 22 and others. Not easy to find famous people with the same reading list as me cos they always read really obscure titles and arthouse books and all that. So he was talking about what awesome works the great gatsby and to kill a mockingbird is. Now I've read these two titles and I've never gotten what people see in them, or rather why they're considered great books of the 20th century. I remember Vanessa mentioning in her blog once that she could read mockingbird over and over again. Me? I struggled to finish it. And really, I just didn't get WHY it was apparently such a great story.

I think I read for pleasure, which means i would rather read very easy-to-understand stuff with unputdownable plots, whether or not it stimulates my mind and contribute to me as an individual. Which is why I stayed up till 5am to read twilight. Do you see me doing that for to kill a mockingbird or gatsby? NOOOooo. Which is really not how someone who professes to love literature should behave.

This little incident made me think. What am I really passionate about? Well actually it's been on my mind a lot these days. I just never had the motivation to put my thoughts down in words.

I mean, I love a lot of things, mainly anything artsy fartsy. I love plays and music and film and photography and dance and literature and art exhibitions and all. In fact I think i would be incomplete without all of that. But I am seriously not passionate enough about anything to be willing to invest time and energy to hone my skills and knowledge. I love books, but I don't have the patience to pore through serious stuff nor do I feel enlightened or awed after reading "great works". Honestly, I feel that i'm sometimes just shallow. Not in a bimbotic way, just not knowledgable enough about anything. My guitar is...somewhere in the house collecting dust and I don't even touch my piano anymore unless i have to figure out chords for a song. I love the drums the most and I play fairly well, but I have absolutely no desire to learn the technicalities. How many inches the ride is la, what brand of cymbals sound the best la, what tone is the toms la, how many degrees you should hit the snare at la, yadamajinggalah!

I wanted to be really good at photography once but I didn't bother to go read up on the technical side of it either. Thus all I do is compose the picture nicely while someone else always sets the settings for me. I really wanted to take up dance last year but i just didn't have the time, and I cannot draw to save my own life. This one, ehehe i think got no cure la. I just betul betul cannot draw.

I could go on and on about how I love these things but never bother to learn more about it. Thus I'm a jill of all trades and master of none. And that sucks pretty bad because I always feel so unknowledgable and unschooled, and that I have no right to claim i love something if i don't bother to invest time and energy in it.

Which is why I absolutely admire artsy fartsy people because they're willing to sacrifice for their passion and the betterment of it. Most of all, i admire them becuase they have PASSION. I feel very very shallow sometimes talking to my artsy friends. And I can't even explain my lack of motivation. I mean, if you truly like something, whether or not it's real fiery, burning passion, wouldn't you want to learn more about it anyway? I befuddle myself, really.

I don't even know if this post will spur me on to do SOMETHING. Probably not. But I was really enlightened yesterday night and I think I might want to change my course in uni. I've always wanted to do journalism, but now I think I want to do something more along the academic path, like international relations or english literature, at least something that will make me read up on things and be knowledgable about something. Mass comm is great, but I guess you can just pick it up along the way as you work and get involved in different things eventually. But knowledge is hard to come by. It requires time and effort and a desire to learn. And knowing me, I wouldn't be motivated enough to self-learn anything if I didn't have a need to. So thats why I'm really considering the uni thing.

I NEED to be passionate about something. I'm so... blah!