This is why Subang rocks so much

Cos we're family.

Memories

Was flipping through one of my church songbooks today and i came across this song that we used to sing back in CF in secondary school. Kinda reminded me of what we are supposed to be to each other. We kinda used it to "welcome" someone who just came to CF for the 1st time...haha a little freaky for the poor kid but hey it was genuine...anyways the lyrics go:


Welcome to the family,
We're glad that you have come
To share your life with us
As we grow in love
And may we always be to you what God would have us be:
A family always there
To be strong and to lean on
May we learn to love each other more with each new day
May words of love be on our lips in everything we say
May God's Spirit melt our hearts and teach us how to pray
That we might be a true family


Kinda sad that sometimes we forget that we're all a family in Christ and let nonsense separate and divide.

Hymms and Choruses?

Stole this off my sis' blog...i think it hilarious...haha...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hymns and Choruses

An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.
"Well," said the farmer, "It was good. They did something different, however. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns."
"Praise choruses," said his wife, "What are those?"
"Oh, they're okay. They're sort of like hymns, only different," said the farmer.
"Well, what's the difference?" ask his wife.
The farmer said,"Well, it's like this - If i were to say to you:

'Martha, the cows are in the corn,'

well, that would be a hymn. If, on the other hand, I were to say to you:

Martha Martha, Martha, Oh, Martha, MARTHA MARTHA, the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the black and white cows, the COWS, COWS, COWS are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, care in the corn, the CORN, CORN, CORN

then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well that would be a praise chorus."

As lucky would have it, the exact same Sunday a young, new Christian from the city church attended the small town church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was. "Well," said the young man, "It was good. They did something different, however. They sang hymns instead of regular songs."
"Hymns," said his wife, "what are those?"
"Oh, they're okay. They're sort of like regular songs, only different,"said the young man.
"Well, what's the difference?" asked his wife.
The young man said,"Well it's likethis. If I were to say to you,

' Martha, the cows are in the corn,'

well, that would be a regular song. If, on the other hand, I were to say to you:

Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my vry.
Inclinesthine ear to the words of my mouth.
Turn the righteous, inimitable, glorious truth.
For the way of the animals who can explain?
There in their headsin no shadow of sense.
Hearkenest they in God's sun ot his rain.
Unless from the mild, tempting cort they are fenced.
Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight,
Have broke free their shackles, their warm pens eschewed.
Then goaded by minious of darkness and night.
They all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn have chewed.
So look to that bright shinning day by and by,
Where all foul corruptions of earth are reborn.
Where no vicious animals makes my soul cry
And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.


Then, if I were to do only verses one, three and four and do a key change on the last verse, well that would be a hymn."

Not too good

These past few days haven't been too good. Got hit by the flu bug again, of which made me realise that i fall sick on average once every 3 weeks. Which is not a good thing when u have plans made for the week ahead which have to all be cancelled because of some damned flu. And to make things worse, i woke up yesterday morning feeling as if my right eyelids had been glued together. Mumbling incoherent curses to myself as i climbed out of bed straight to the bathroom to spit phelgm and look at my eye. I mumbled another curse when i saw my eye. Conjunctivitis! BAH!

Feeling pissed off and decidedly feeling pissed for the rest of the day, I took a shower and headed of to the local clinic. Driving there and still muttering curses at my ill health and just plain rotten luck at getting sore eyes I took a wrong turn and headed to town instead of the clinic, of which I realised instantly, and yell out another curse. And from the corner of my eye I saw another motorist waiting at a red light on the opposite side of the road turn and look bewilderedly at me. Must be all the loud mouthed cursing, I thought as I made a U turn back in the right direction. For those who are surprised at all my cursing confessions, I'm a lot more verbally expressive when I'm alone and pissed at something. Try not to do it but it happens sometimes.

Reaching the clinic did put a lot of things into perspective for me. Sitting down waiting for my turn, you see people coming in for checkups for hypertension, a sick man with his three young children waiting for their turn and their mom nowhere to be seen, and old man slowly shuffling to his seat, a young boy waiting with his mom...the list goes on.

Which struck me when I compared the magnitude of my sorrows to theirs. Whats a little flu and a sore eyes. Plenty of discomfort and inconvenience of course, but no more than that. And I guess I went away from the clinic a better person than before, maybe not physically, but a little bit more grateful for what I have.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

*clears throat and wipe some snort of the nose with the pack of tissues beside me*


And last night before i slept i was thinking about how much of the holidays i had left. Slightly under a month. How time flies again. Soon it'll be time to go back to london again. Which then my thoughts strayed to all the stuff i had planned to do and what have i actually manage to do. Here's a little list:

• Plan 1 - Practice guitar 8 hours a day everyday for 4 months and play like Slash at the end of it. In truth, on a very good day I'd get down 5 hours of practice, and some days i didn't touch my guitar at all cos i was too busy saving Middle Earth or taking over Vice City. And I'm still stuck at that same spot for GNR's Sweet Child of Mine. A little bit closer though.
• Plan 2 - Sleep early, wake up early. Never happened.
• Plan 3 - Go swimming every day in the morning, do some other sports in the evening in the hope that i might build up some muscle. Went swimming for about 2 months, never did sports in the evening cos i was sleeping/killing orcs, and no muscles built. In fact am skinnier that before.
• Plan 4 - Go travelling around Malaysia, Kinabalu, Tioman, Penang and also visit Singapore. Got as far as Kinabalu and went bankrupt after that. Talk about money laundering.
• Plan 5 - Buy my younger brother a drum kit. Went broke as described above.
• Plan 6 - Read a number of books. Read one book, When Heaven is Silent by Rob Dunn. But that was about it though.
• Plan 7 - Spent about a month in Subang with friends. Been there for about 5 days only. Not entirely my fault though, circumstances have dictated otherwise. But it was one of the best times i had so far since I got back.
• Plan 8 - Recover my lost footballing skills. Kicked a ball about my lawn about twice I think.

Well I guess this just goes to show that life never goes as planned. Strive for idealism we can, but its all strife at the end I guess. At least for me. Bwahaha.

*cough cough cough cough*

Candid Moment

We were touring Luxembourg and Alvin volunteered to be navigator. Here we are in this moment staring at our hero looking up the map on the bus stop. As Alvin lead us on our way, Ding turned to me and said, " You know Daniel, knowing Alvin, we should've gone the opposite direction instead."

Well history charts for us that we indeed went the wrong way.

Revelation

A few months back I remember sitting in my room in london trying hard to play Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean". And as hard as i tried, i could never get the same tone or sound that was in the song during the solo part.

Today, while i was playing GTA Vice City and the in game's radio station Flash FM started playing that same song...half listening to it while driving around shooting innocent civilians a revelation dawned on me:

IT'S A BASS GUITAR SOLO!!!!

no wonder i could never get it right. blah!

*smashes head on wall repeatedly till blood oozes like the characters in happytreefriends*

die chelsea die!

Anyone (well maybe except chelsea fans) watching last night premiership opening match between chelsea and wigan would have felt sorrow and sadness for wigan. Hardwork, sheer desire and commitment, but it wasnt enough. Like how life is always unfair. Like how that monkey crespo(a very good monkey i must say) hit in a wonder goal in the last 30 secs of the match. And like how Wigan should have kept Camara on and maybe he would have scored that 2 golden chances they had and then the scoreline would be Wigan 2 Chelsea 0. Or maybe if Drogba just did us all a favour and kicked himself in the teeth ( and i know apu will support me on this). And as for the Arsenal-Newcastle match, yeah, poor Mr Jenas who got sent off didn't really deserve it either, but he could have broken someone's knee, and I'd would be really pissed if that had happened cos we dont have Vieira anymore. So PADAN MUKA! oh yeah, i'm an Arsenal fan btw...damn so fast talking crap again.

On to more depressing issues. The holidays is 3/4 gone. I only have 1 month left. 1 MONTH!!!?? *tee hee...yeah 1 month..big smiley grin* Anyways, sigh. How time flies. And I didnt get to do all I wanted to do throughout this hols. And also the realisation that this will be the 2nd last time i ever get such a holiday as long as this. Next year it would be the last, then that would be the end of my student life where I get to loaf the days away.

And the haze has finally left Melaka alone and make it's way up to north Malaysia, sorry Penang-lang. Well life aint fair, ain't it? But why is it still so bleeding hot in Melaka?? It's even hotter than concrete KL. Wierd. If Alvin lived in Melaka i'm sure he'd be able to give a pretty good suggestion why...but he doesnt.

I'm looking foward to going up to Subang again, one more time before I fly back to gloomy no sun no warmth London. Gotta get my pedals too. And meet all those wonderful ACTS people again.

HOT LAH HOT!!!!!!!!

another untitled

Frustrations,
Stacked over layers of ....

blah.
i'm too pissed to write.

Of Cousins, George Benson and Swims

Right now i have my 5 year old cousin, Abigail, sitting next to me, driving me absolutely nuts. As I'm typing i this she is playing with my Logitech Mouse moving the mouse cursor ALL OVER the screen. And at the same time I'm assuring my grandma that i'll try my best not to get blown up when go back to london after the summer. Anyways, my little cousin came over to my place this morning and invaded my personal space. Everything that i wanted to do has come to a standstill, put off and taken over by the No. 1 priority of entertaining the 5 year old. Now it's no easy task entertaining a hyperactive 5 year old. Playing lego means building a little house with her, and then playing an imaginary i-live -with-you-in-the-same-house-let's-go shopping-together-in-little-Lego-cars for about as long as 2 lifetimes, then proceeding to playing ball with her, and finally when i ran out of ideas, i opened Microsoft Word and left her "play typing" with the laptop. Now this day has really gave me serious thoughts of whether getting married and having kids is actually such a blessing. I mean, man, the kid demands 24-HOUR-UNWAVERING-PLAY-WITH-ME attention. This is crazy. okok... i needa get a grip on things and move on.

Anyways I've been out swimming the past week every morning. The nice cool water has some fantastic calming effect in the ridiculously hot and humid weather here. You just feel like chilling out in the big nice olympic size MPMBB pool forever and ever, until the siren blast goes off and tells u its time to get up out of the pool. Funny thing about there(MPMBB pool) the lockers have no wristbands where you can tie the key round your wrist while you swim. And i kept my key in err...the side of my swimming trunks. And expectedly it got lost. So you can imagine the searching that ensued. And of which i couldnt find it. Until i stood up and walk out of the pool and look down and notice something wasnt right about the shape. I leave the rest to you. But point is i got the key back and my stuff out of the locker *grins*

Bought 2 cds yesterday. Got myself that Lakewood CD that I always wanted. Its awesome. Just so good. Been listening to it ever since. And also a Geroge Benson: The Greatest Hits Ever CD. Not bad, i kinda like it, but i wish there were more songs which were heavier on guitars. There's some ballads in there which just dont really appeal to me. But having said that, he's one heck of a guitarist.

---------------------

And some wonderful things that happened the last week. I was quite concerned about my housing situation in London for next year as there was plenty of uncertainty of whether i would have a place to stay, housemates, etc and all that stuff. So as I was wondering what was the best approach to it i askerd God about it. And true enough, in His goodness, an answer came the very next day and the situation of the house is settled with very favourable terms. Praise God for that!

Another incident was my guitar case which was damaged on the way back from UK. Had tried to repair it but the lock's permanently screwed. Also the guitar had bits and pieces falling out. Lodge a complain to MAS a month ago but no reply. Decided to bring it to God again...and next day I get a phone call from my travel agent saying that MAS had replied and will reimburse me 160USD! How awesome is that?

Thank You Jesus!

Fragility and The Quest For Speed

I've been sporting this msn nick for sometime already now with the intention of reminding myself to blog about it....a phrase that has, one word that's rather thoughtful and maybe even profound i might say, and another one holding not much of a meaning because i erm... erm.... like contrasts and playing with words to make unmeaningful phrases.

Ok, let's begin with the word fragility. I just realised how fragile we are, our lives, our very beings, everything that we have and own. Take our lives for instance. A moment its like this, and another moment its like that. While some of us maybe argue we're fine and all, you know like typically, "Aiyah don't worry one-lah, sure can one. So small matter scared for what?" ( for any non-malaysian readers that's english btw, victorian style) kind of thoughts that invade our minds, thinking we're invincible ,albeit subconciously, in our ignorance of eveything happening around us.

Take your confidence for example. It's fragile. Like a flowerpot . Drop it but a little and it might stand. Drop it a little harder and it cracks. Apply the right blow and it completely shatters. And what happens of the soil inside it holds? It leaks out. Not immediately, but it does. Like us. Without our confidence things that used to be routine for us just get impossible. Like survival for that flower in the broken flowerpot.

Or another more infamous incident, the bombings in London. Imagine some typical working guy, probably waking up that morning, dreading the morning rush hour at King's Cross, or a young lady excitedly climbing up bus No 30 to begin her first day at work, an alcohol consuming cigarrette puffing sexoholic party guy who woke up thinking about that encounter with that lady in the bar night before and looking foward to meeting her again that same night(no intention of patronizing here, just making a variety of characters), or the God fearing man who woke up that morning and took the tube to get to a friend who was facing troubles and needed someone to talk to. Individuals who once were alive are no longer bacause some severely misguided (and probably manipulated) people thought that by killing people they'd be doing God a favour. So fragile. Everyone of us.

And reading Thomas A` Kempis' The Imitation of Christ which prompted all this thinking in the 1st place, says "Oh, how great is human frailty, which is always prone to evil! Today you confess your sins, and tomorrow you commit the very same sins you have confessed today. Now you purpose to take heed, and after an hour you behave such as though you had never had any such purpose at all."

And how true were Mr. Kempis' comments. Our very beings are frail. But a fitting conclusion to this bleakness was indeed the following sentence of his words, "Therefore we have good cause to humble ourselves and never to have any great conceit of ourselves, since we are so frail and inconstant. "

Maybe we need to live like there is no tomorrow, no, not like going out partying and all that, rather to actually do some good and help that old lady living across the street. Or encouraging a friend who feels down. Or serve instead of being served.

Just maybe.

cd wishlist edit

OK i just went to Alter Bridge's webbie and heard some samples from their album...man...i want that one too cos it rocks. Check them out at http://www.alterbridge.com/home.html

something to remember

Just a little reminder to myself ..... :)

Sweeter

Everyday with you Lord
Is sweeter than the day before
Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before

Every morning I will worship
Every evening I'll adore
Cause everyday with You
Is sweeter than the day before

What a privilledge to know you
Like I know You
To be loved
Like You love me
What an honour to worship
Truly worship
From this heart that You have freed

From the rising of the sun
To the setting of the same

Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before
Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before

Every morning I will worship
Every evening I'll adore
Everyday with You is sweeter
Sweeter than the day before

What wonder to live like
Really live like
Overcoming anything
What a reason to lift up
Freely lift up
Everyday my everything

From the rising of the sun
To the setting of the same

Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before
Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before

Every morning I will worship
Every evening I'll adore
Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before

Everyday, everyday with You Lord
Everyday sweeter than the day before

From the album "Cover the Earth" by Lakewood Church

Thank You Jesus!!!!!!

CDs anyone?

Was recently thinking of getting off my butt and buying those few CDs that i've always wanted. Problem is, there might be a wee bit too many of them. Which of course the real problem is the lack of necessary funds. I remember very vividly before leaving for UK sometime this time last year that newspapers were ranting about how music CDs prices would drop...well its' been a year and they have only increased. No wonder they can't stop people from buying pirated CDs which costs only 1/4 of the original price at most.

But anyways here's a wishlist:

1. Jamiroquai's A Funk Oddessey
2. AC/DC's Double Disc AC/DC LIVE
3. Bon Jovi's Crossroads:The best of Bon Jovi
4. Gun's N Roses Greatest Hits
5. Santana's live album Sacred Fire
6. Steven Curtis Chapman's All About Love (mushy I know but he's one heck of a musician)
7. Lakewood Church's Cover The Earth (been searching high and low for that one and can't find it)
8. Incubus' Morning View
9. Velvet Revolver's Contraband
10. Lost Prophet's Start Something
11. Anything from Chet Atkins or Tommy Emmanuel

Darn, that's quite a bit.

-----------------

Recently I was struck down with the wrecthed holiday killer they call flu. Been sniffing about for a week now. Can't even do half the things I planned to do. So for the past week I ended up gluing myself in front of the TV armed with the PS2 and this oober cool WW2 game called Medal of Honour Eropean Assault. The game is actually a bit poor in some ways (like how enemies seem to spawn out of nowhere and start causing serious bodily hard to you), but it's a fun 1st person shooter. Darn computer games. No matter how I swear off them I always end up playing them. On a side note, they shoule make more games like Crimsonland.

----------------

Oh yeah, and Subang......Subang gave me the most enjoyable 5 days of my life since I got back. Its even better than Italy. Or Europe. Or anywhere else in the world for that matter. Moments of nostalgia mixed with reality... meeting up with close friends...blissful indeed. whoopeee!

--------------

and, here's a cool site for you guys to check out in your free time:

http://www.think.com.my/

So people out there, have loads of fun in the coming week. seeya

subang...

SUBANG HERE I COME! Wheeeeee......

Sabah - Negeri Di Bawah Bayu

Not too long ago i went back to the land where i was born, Sabah. Went there specially to climb Mt. Kinabalu, with two of my old high school buddies. Its one of the best trips i've been on, definately worth many many more visit cos there's so much to see, and not even food poisoining on the last days which ended my holiday could dampen my enthusiasm for that place. Sabah rocks!

Anyways here some pics that i took over there.

The view of KK town (Kota Kinabalu) atop bukit bendera. I went there and realised that Melaka is indeed a more ulu place than Sabah....haha...kononnya Straits Settlement. Only problem with KK is that its a little bit pricey over there, food slighty more expensive than KL.

Mount Kinabalu- This was the view we had from the chalet that we stayed in the night before the climb. Pretty pretty indeed.

.....Ooooohhh! We're halfway there...Ooooo-oohhh! Living on a prayer!.... Halfway through (actually more like 1/4) the climb we stopped to take a picture. Left to right: Jonathan, Wilbur and me. I look kinda sheepish in this pic. Don't like it at all.

A we climbed higher, i chucked my camera back in my bag and gave up taking pictures and concentrated more on catching my breath. NOT a good idea to go climbing if you have a flu. Not at all. But anyways as we went higher the tall thick tropical foliage evetually disappeared and turned into small tiny bonzai-like trees. And more importantly we saw the mountain. Felt kinda small and insignificant when I took this picture. No more trees up there though (duh!).

Poor Jon boy died of exhaustion that night when we reached Laban Rata (Laban Rata is a place where u stop and rest for the night before continuing your climb to the summit). He fell asleep in 3 seconds...I swear, no kidding. But anyways we didn't, so we took some pics of *ahem* and not to mention a couple of videos featuring the sleeping John boy. He hasnt seen it to this day...muahaha

The first sight of daylight near the peak. Me and wilbur saw the start of daylight about 500 m from the peak. And dawn came, it dawned on us that WE COULDNT REACH THE SUMMIT IN TIME FOR SUNRISE! So onward from here was a psychotic run upwards to the peak (Imagine Frodo and Sam on the last part of their journey to Mt. Doom and you'll get the idea.. minus the burning lava and of course, the preciousssss..). Still had time to pause for a picture though..wheee!

We did make it to the peak on time for sunrise. So i went trigger happy here and forgot about all the exhaustion and all the flu and cold and wind and blah blah blah. But here's a view looking south-eastwards from the peak.

Made it for sunrise! yay! Only bad thing about this was that the howling wind meant that i couldn't get a good clear picture. But i guess it looks pretty fine anyways.

Poor Wilbur's hands were shivering when he took this picture for me. But anyways thats the peak and a signboard in Kadazan or Dusun or Bajau or Iban..heck I dunno. There were bucketloads of people up there too. All like us, cheered up by the peak and the arrival of daylight.

John made it to the peak slighly later than we did, and again we stopped for a photo when he arrived. Don't mind the raincoat that he's wearing. It was raining for 8 hours the night before we set off.

These 3 fellas sticking out are known as the three ugly sisters. Wonder why they didnt name it the three ugly brothers instead.

We made our way down after that and stayed one more night at the foothills. This was the morning view from our chalet. Very scenic place.

When we got back to KK town, we stayed over at a friends place (More like my dad's good friend). He was very kind to take time off and show us around and tell us stuff about Sabah. Anyways this is Yayasan Sabah, a foundation set up giving scholarships out for students who do well in their SPM exams. Shortly after taking this picture all the complications involved in getting food poisoining set in and..yeah you know what happens when you get food poisoining. If you haven't, you dont wanna know.

After that we went on to UMS, (it's University something Sabah, i dunnoe lah!). Anyways its the hugest Uni in Malaysia i think, and certainly one of the most beautiful ones. The place has a freaking beach lah! And what do i get for my uni in london? A patch of grass that they call a park! But anyways these 4 pics were taken from the Uni's jetty(!) looking out towards the sea. I should make postcards out of them and put them up for sale.

Arriving home after that my food poisoining got really bad and i was pretty much not very mobile after that. So all plans of island hopping at the Gaya islands and Tanjung Aru beach was shelved as i then concentrated on staying alive. But we still had time for one last picture...

A tribute to the wonderful family (minus wilbur and john boy of course) who was exceedingly hospitable to us, and kept me alive and all in my last 2 days there. They're the greatest people.

Roma!! Ancient Rome before my eyes...

I used to wonder how life in ancient rome would be like everytime i read books about the roman empire, its emperors, or watched gladiator for that matter. So i was at my touristy best again, snapping pictures left and right trying to capture as much of it as possible. And to start off here's a symbol of ancient roman might- the colosseum


The mighty colloseum in Rome. It has the same seating capacity as Bukit Jalil stadium...70,000 people. 



Build in rememberence of all the Christians who were matryed by Emperor Nero. 



A view inside the colosseum. With me in it, of course :P 



The arch of Constantine. Emperor Constantine. No, not that comic book character. Build to celebrate some victory. Quite a few around Rome. 




The Roman Forum. Words fail me when i look at the size of the ruins that are left.  



Victor Emmanuel II Monument. Under that giant statue in the middle is the tomb of the unknown soldier. Its guarded but troops so forget about taking pictures with it. But anyways, its there as a tribute to all the italian soldiers who died in world war 1 and were unable to receive a proper burial. 



Steps leading up to Capitoline Hill in both directions. On the left is a church, and on the right is some musuems.  



The Spanish steps. Shortly after taking this picture, it started raining cows and buffalloes and wouldn't stop for an hour. 




Casa D S'Angelo - Castle of the angel. Story goes that Rome was once suffering from a terrible plague throughout the city. The pope lead a procession(or something like that) to pray to God to ask for the plague to be lifted off the city. People then saw and angel coming down to the roof of the castle and sheating his sword, as a sign that grace had been granted to the city. Interesting indeed. 



The baths of caracala. Looks fascinating from the outside but a real dissapointment. Ranks 2nd worst behind Pisa as the bogeys of the trip. 


I guess no trip to Rome will be complete without a visit to the Vatican. I wouldn't forgive myself if i did. (Although in truth i missed a free entry into the sistine chapel and the vatican musuem due to a slight oversight about the opening times of the two places...blearrggghh!). So here's a little bit of the Vatican City



View from atop the Vatican, St Peter's Basilica. Right in the middle is an Eygptian Obelisk. The statues at the bottom of the picture are atatues of Jesus and the 12 disciples. 



Inside St Peter's. My jaw was gaping open for the 2 hours that i was walking inside. I closed it after that for the sake of decency. 



A small portion of the ceiling in the cathedral. 



I wish i could add some commentary to this picture but i really cant remember what is it. Its in the cathedral though...ehehe...sowieee. 



A guard outside the vatican. Interestingly enough, to qualify as a guard for the pope, you need to be swiss, catholic, male and some other stuff. You get to wear nice uniform though =) 


Okies....that was rome in pictures. Took many more shots, but not all of them came out well, so i decided not to put them up (Mainly due to the fact that it would be a pain to put up all 300 pictures!). Venice, Florence, Pisa and Pompeii are here too, so scroll down and take a look see. Thanks for visiting folks! Will upload pics of Sabah soon!