Living It Up

Hey bride & groom!  Congratulations on your wedding.  Dessert was excellent.  :P 

May your lives together be as sweet as the chocolate tart!

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Our women’s table-tennis team just gave Singapore its first Olympic (silver) medal in 48 years.  48 years - that’s a wait that started even before Singapore gained independence.  Kind of put things into perspective doesn’t it?  Our girls fought hard.  They clawed tooth and nail for every point in the semi-final against Korea to earn their place in the final.  And though China proved the stronger team, I’m still extremely proud that our girls never gave up.  They pushed China to show their mettle in every rally and that was good enough for me.

There have been some naysaying Singaporeans though.  Saying that it’s no big deal because our 3 players were born in China and were brought to Singapore to play table-tennis for us under our Foreign Talent programme.  Supporters of the Foreign Talent programme have defended it by saying it doesn’t matter where the players are from since almost every nation in the world has a China born table-tennis player. (What, you thought all the Nigerian and Korean table-tennis players were born and bred in those countries?)  Their stand is, if others can do it, why can’t we?

Personally, I look at it differently.  To every Singaporean who thinks we need a Singapore born citizen to represent us in sports, I have this question - Where did your grandparents and/or great-grandparents come from?  Was it not China, Malaya or India?  At 43 years old, Singapore is a very very young nation and the vast majority of our citizens descended from migrants who came to Singapore in search of a better life.  We, of all countries, should be less xenophobic!

So I say, "加油!".  I’m proud of Li Jia Wei, Feng Tian Wei and Wang Yue Gu.  Thank you for letting Singapore’s flag be raised for the first time in the Olympics.  I hope you girls get more medals in the singles matches in the next couple of days.  Go Team Singapore!  May you get double happiness at the tables.

P.S. Did you know Tan Howe Liang, our first silver medalist at the Olympics in 1960 also migrated here from China?

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SINGAPORE BEAT SOUTH KOREA IN THE BEIJING OLYMPICS TABLE-TENNIS WOMEN’S SEMI-FINALS TO ADVANCE INTO FINALS ON SUNDAY!  WOOHOO!

Would it be too much to ask for a gold now? 

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Had a short chat with my Qingfu just now… short because he suddenly went offline and didn’t log back.  Talk about rude.  Tsk tsk.  But I will forgive him ‘cos today’s his birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY QINGFU!!

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This was today’s Our Daily Bread reading. 

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Jesus’ most memorable story, The Prodigal Son, ends with a banquet scene, featuring as its hero a good-for-nothing who has soiled the family reputation. Those judged undesirable by everyone else—like the prodigal son—are infinitely desirable to God. When one of them turns to God, a party breaks out (Luke 15:22-24).

In the Old Testament, levitical laws guarded against contagion. Among the things that would contaminate a person were contact with certain animals, carcasses, or the sick. But Jesus reversed the process. Rather than becoming contaminated by what was unclean, He made the unclean whole.

I sense in Jesus a fulfillment, not an abolition, of the Old Testament laws. God had hallowed creation by separating the sacred from the profane, the clean from the unclean. Jesus did not cancel out this hallowing principle; rather He changed its source.

Because of God’s great grace, we can be agents of His holiness, for He now dwells within us. We can seek, as Jesus did, for ways to be a source of holiness. The sick and the maimed are not hot spots of contamination but potential reservoirs of God’s mercy. We are called to extend that mercy, to be conveyers of grace, not avoiders of contagion. Like Jesus, we can help make the “unclean” clean.  — Philip Yancey

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The part that speaks to me most is that Jesus did not abolish the laws of the old Testament, but he fulfilled them.

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Last Sunday was the last of a 4-part sermon series on the "One Thing" that pleases God.  Saw this poem in the church bulletin and liked it very much.

The Power of One

One song can spark a moment,
One flower can wake the dream.
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald spring.

One smile begins a friendship,
One handclasp lifts a soul.
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal.

One vote can change a nation,
One sunbeam lights a room.
One candle wipes out darkness,
One laugh will conquer gloom.

One step must start each journey,
One word must start each prayer.
One hope will raise our spirits,
One touch will show you care.

One voice can speak with wisdom,
One heart can know what is true.
One life can make the difference,
You see, it’s up to you.

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Today’s China’s National Day.  Heh.  As well as a friend’s birthday.  Happy celebrating people!! 

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Was just chatting with my Qingfu on MSN.  Told me that he experienced an earthquake 2 nights ago.  Happened at 4:40am, 4.5 on the Richter scale.  He woke up ‘cos his bed shook and of ‘cos the furniture in his room started moving.  But no serious damage to person nor possessions.  Which is very very fortunate.  My Qingfu also damn funny… said the first thing that crossed his mind was - “does this mean no exams?”.  Haha.  But no.. his exams are a few weeks away and they’re going on as scheduled. 

Was going to tell my Qingfu about the super suay night i had 2 nights ago (Fri night) too.  Then it suddenly hit me that i wasn’t really suay?  What happened on Fri night was this.  I was the emcee for Partner’s wedding.  When we were getting ready for the dinner, i was trying to bun up my hair when my hair clip broke.  Fine.  No biggie but that’s incident 1.

The dinner went smoothly.  After the dinner, as Azure and i was leaving the carpark, my complimentary ticket didn’t work.  In fact, my cashcard jammed too!!  Though i eventually managed to use it to pay the $10.50 parking charge and got out of the carpark.  That was incident 2.

I decided to take CTE-PIE to go home.  Traffic was bad on the CTE… slow moving traffic… which i thought never mind lah… Fri night… no hurry right?  Just be patient lor.  Then the car in front of me jammed brake.  I followed suit… but while i managed to stop in time, the guy behind me didn’t… and “Boom!”.  There was this loud sound as my bumper got hit.

Argh!  I put on my hazzard lights and got out of the car.  As i looked into my rear view mirror, i saw an Indian guy get out of the other car.  There was this sinking feeling inside me… and i steeled myself for a possible argument should the driver behind try to pin blame on me for jamming my brakes.

Thankfully, the guy turned out to be a nice, soft-spoken chap.  And the amazing thing was, though the “Boom” sound was really loud, i couldn’t see any damage to my car!! 

The guy suggested that we move our cars a little further apart so we could have a better view.  I took note of his licence plate and moved my car to the road shoulder and he followed too.  Our 2nd inspection confirmed that there was no real damage… the toyota logo of his car hit the metal strip of my bumper… there were some fine scratches within a 1cm area but that was it!  His toyota logo was slightly scratched too. 

Seeing that the damage (if u can even call it damage) was minimal, i decided to let it pass.  What was there to repair anyway right?  The guy was obviously relieved and so we headed back into our respective cars and drove off.

About 50m in front, Azure and i saw a 4-car bumper collision and guess what?  The car that caused me to jam my brakes?  He was the last car in the 4-car accident.  Wahahaha.  Azure said, “Wow.  Looks like that guy’s fated to get into an accident.”

I agreed.  Hehe.  But in retrospect, i realise (and was telling my Qingfu) that thank God i got into the minimal damage bumper incident with the car behind else i might have ended up as the 5th car in the latter accident!!

Qingfu said, “Blessing in disguise!”

Yeap!  I concur.

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Today is Qingfu as well as Sharkey’s birthday!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY GUYS!!

Qingfu, hope u get a good deal for your internship.  Hope to see u really really soon!

Sharky, nice to have a good friend at work.  May your future soar now that your dept has about cleaned out?  Hahaha.  (Oh well, he’s not going to see this… i’m not telling him my blog URL.. not yet at least.)  :p

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Happy Birthday once again to Adam, Superman and Socks!!  Heh… sent out a Happy Birthday sms at the same time… though i know it isn’t quite Superman’s birthday yet ‘cos he lives in Seattle… but my cousin’s getting married 10 June as well and i didn’t want to miss wishing Superman a happy birthday, in case i get really busy at the wedding reception later.

Hope you guys have a really good Sunday, and may the Lord continue to bless u. 

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I have a really nice senior from hall.  He’s always been the super helpful, super friendly sort, always going beyond his call of duty to help anyone in need.  (So it’s perfect that he’s a teacher now!).

Sort of lost touch with this senior after i left Hall 11… not that i was really close to Papa Smurf during my hall days… but there were times when we were close.  Anyway, i bumped into Papa Smurf at Dragonfly about a month ago and we’ve been keep in touch again since then.

Knowing that i’ve morphed into a cheongster monster, Papa Smurf will sms me every weekend (almost) to see what i’m doing.  Last Friday, Papa Smurf sms’d to ask where i was clubbing.  Told him i was at Dbl O & invited him to join me.  He said i was really “on”, but he couldn’t make it that day ‘cos he was dying from overwork.  Not sure what made me say it… perhaps it was after downing 1/2 a jug of vodka lime (part of some silly forfeit)… i said i was feeling a little down and so i decide to go party a bit.  Papa Smurf asked what was bothering me but i couldn’t really sms ‘cos i was still playing finger gussing games with my friends.

Papa Smurf offered to send me home if i was too drunk to drive… but i assured him i’ll be fine.  (Well, i dragged Buddy & another guy out to supper to “digest” the alcohol before driving home!)  Anyway, i thought it was really nice of him.  Rare to find someone who’s willing to go out of his way for a friend.  I told Papa Smurf that he was a good senior… and he said, “Don’t say senior.  Sounds so old.  We’re brothers & sisters in Christ.”  I was touched.  ‘Cos… er… if i got home from work at 11pm, i don’t think i’ll be very Christ-like at all…

Anyway, Papa Smurf called just now to check how i was doing.  Told him there wasn’t really any 1 thing that was bothering me… just an accmulation of small stuff that’s putting a damper on my usual hyperactivity.  Ended up “biyaching” about some students in his school.  Haha.  Even then, his patience amazes me.

Oh well, just wanted to say that i’m grateful for good friends whom i can count on, even if there were times when the friendship was really dormant.  And if u’re wondering why he’s called Papa Smurf… haha… that’s ‘cos he has the same surname as me… and the same name as my dad! :P

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Just wanted to note that things are going well at work.  I’ve been kept busy… having to make quite a few overseas calls even after i come home late at night.  But’s it’s good.  I feel that i belong more now… and i guess i’m not going to get fired at the end of my probation period.  Haha.

The colleagues have been nice… and they’re all on a lookout for a tall, Christian, Cantonese guy who stays in the east for me.  Haha.  Even the big boss knows about it now (he found out during lunch today)… says he’ll make it one of his KPIs (Key Performance Index) to find me a bf.  Haha.  Very funny. 

During our dept dinner on Mon, my boss asked the other new guy & me what do we hope to achieve in the next year.  The topic of an overseas attachment (note - posting is when they pay u to go overseas… attachment is when u go overseas but on local terms… purely for self-enrichment).  Anyway, i thought it would be great if i get the opportunity to work overseas… Bangkok or China perhaps?  It definitely won’t be in the coming year… that’s too soon… but perhaps the following year?  I don’t know… but that’s good motivation to work hard.

U know, i suddenly feel like there’s no need to hide behind a mask anymore.  For the first time since i was introduced to the Internet, i used my real name online - for my MSN nick.  Perhaps i’ll soon post photos of myself on my blog… haha…what’s there to hide right?  (Then i’ll just have to password protect the bitching abt my work.  :P)

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塞翁失马，焉知非福 is a Chinese proverb that loosely translates to mean that not all misfortunes are “bad”.  It’s sort of similar to saying that there’s a silver lining behind every dark cloud or there’s always 2 sides to a coin… Whatever the case, i got to experience this myself recently.

The web browser of my Nokia N73 konked out yesterday… some file hanged and i kept getting the error message, “Web Browser already in use” whenever i tried to open the browser.  Did a search online and saw that the only solution was to do a hard reset (means u lose all the data & configuration) on the phone.

Thankfully, i backed up all my stuff 2 days back, using the Nokia Communicator software.  So i happily keyed in *#7370# last night.  Wham!  Phone got resetted, and the browser worked fine after that.  Unfortunately, it slipped my mind that i had an important sms in my inbox that wasn’t backed up!  And that sms was gone… sigh.  Too bad i guess… had to get the info all over again… not a biggie but nonetheless…

Was still feeling a little sore about the whole thing this morning.  But as i used the phone during the course of the day, i realised that the the lagginess that grows with all Symbian S60 smartphone firware was gone too!  Cool!  Guess somehow the hard reset got rid of all unnecessary files in the phone.  That’s when the phrase 塞翁失马，焉知非福 dawned on me.  Yeah… i fully understand it now.  Hehe.

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As much as i like receiving birthday wishes, i also love sending them to friends… esp. if i can get the sms out at 12:00am sharp.  Haha.

Anyway, here’s wishing Azure, Doh & Muscleman a big Happy Birthday & may you have a fantastic day celebrating it!

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I’m quite upset now ‘cos 2 of my entries (Best of the Best and Best Parking Idiots Photo) on 28 Aug 2006 apparently disappeared. Thankfully, i managed to find a cached version of the page from Google. (THANK YOU GOOGLE FOR TRAWLING THE NET!) If not for the cached version, i wouldn’t possibly remember what i wrote regarding my darling Muah Chee… and i actually totally forgot about the photo from parking idiot.
Now i’m just wondering how many other posts have i lost, if any? It’s kind of upsetting isn’t it? I don’t know what’s the reason that these 2 posts disappeared… i’m pretty sure i didn’t delete anything ‘cos i haven’t been blogging the past few days. Hope these are the only 2 posts that went missing.

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