Age? Wait..

You Are 20 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

not so bad....

this morning's reflection...

Waiting.
We're always waiting for something or someone. whell some small things we wait for...like the bus or a taxi, for our food at the line...but there are bigger things we wait for too
i'm waiting for projects to come in
i'm waiting for some ppl to change...or praying for God to change them or change me.
i'm waiting for our house to be done so that we can move in...and before that, waiting to save up enough money to do up our house in the first place. for now this is the most pressing thing we're waiting for. it will happen, we know it, in due time. but when is another thing, whether we can raise that amount of money by then is another. (anyway why so adamant abt it is coz we didn't want to take a loan...did our sums and found out that it's really not worth it taking a loan..anyway really, we aren't in a rush) so by the princple of 'waiting' and not taking the 'instant gratification' route...we wait. argh..of cos with some sacrifices.

many ppl wait for many different things...different big things...this poem answers them..

WAIT
Desparately, helplessly, longingly, I cried:
Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate,
And the Master so gently said, "Child, you must wait."

"Wait? You say, wait!" my indignant reply.
"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith, I have asked, and am claiming your Word.

My future and all to which I can relate
hangs in the balance, and YOU tell me to WAIT?
I'm needing a 'yes', go-ahead and sign,
or even a 'no' to which I can resign.

And Lord, You promised that if we believe
we need but to ask, and we shall recieve.
And Lord, I've been asking, and this is my cry:
I'm weary of asking! I need a reply!

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master repied once again, "You must wait."
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taught
and grumbling to God, "So, I'm waiting... for what?"

He seemed, then, to kneel, and His eyes wept with mine,
And he tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead, and cause mountains to run.

All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want--But, you wouldn't know Me.

You'd not know the depth of My love for each saint;
You'd not know the power that I give to the faint;
You'd not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there;

You'd not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence were all you could see.

You'd never experience that fullness of love
As the peace of My Spirit decends like a dove;
You'd know that I give and I save... (for a start),
But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

The glow of My comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight,
The depth that's beyond getting just what you asked
Of the infinte God, who makes what you have LAST.

You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that "My grace is sufficient for Thee."
Yes, your dreams for your loved one overnight would come true,
But, Oh, the Loss! If I lost what I'm doing in you!

So, be silent, My Child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though oft' My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer is still, "WAIT."

God makes us wait....so that we'll know Him.

Weekend like a holiday

Coz Ww is feeling the difference of having no school...at least no official school..so no marking, no lesson plans to do. I feel the difference in his relaxed-ness.

So i had a somewhat restful weekend (tho my naps are peppered with sniplets of my work here and there...that's the prob with jamp-stopping all work for the weekend...i still dream of it..ugh!). Went with cell and Ww for durians!


And sunday's shopping experience at Taka was delayed till late afternoon. we were supposed to go with Ww's parents aft church but they later decided not to...so after lunch after church, i took a very long nap at my mum's place while waiting for the rain to stop (3hr nap.ahaaha..). but when we went back they changed their mind...and so sent the boys back home before we went shopping.
Alger boy is warming up to me le...after not seeing him for so long.


oh a nice weekend.

but a bz week :S Again. so what's new anyway?
tuition, work, mm & more mm.

Bailey's cake

This is it. It is $19. for such a slice. mad?
At the V Tea Room at Esplanade.
Whell when u take a taste of it...you really feel it's worth it. Quite extraordinary.

My mocha ice blended...but it was too sweet for me to finish it...i drank my colleague's Apple bits tea instead...very unique and refreshing. See that table..it's the table of cakes..there u'll find more $19 cakes...but the Bailey's cake is their signature cake so we thot we try it.

Anyway it was a ex-colleague bday celeb + farewell celeb so we thot we find a nice place to chat and eat.

and i thot i could go running today.....

I exercised!!

This is great for breakfast (mummy bought for us frm Marks&Spencer...and i managed to get Ww to eat his bfast..this cereal, otherwise he just skips it)...it's not just the triple choc...the cereal is crunchy & healthy. so tempting rite? why don't other brands make cereals look so nice?
And i finally ran...or jogged. 15mins. not much...i still don't dare to go to the reservoir...too far...and too long a distance to go round it.

Davinci wasn't too great a disappointment...other than i dumbly booked the wrong date...the first time doing internet booking and i have to make such a mistake! whell at least buying the other set of tickets got us frm the 3rd row to the 5th row frm the front.

maybe i wasn't expecting too much frm the show. tho it was quite a good adapation of the novel itself. great treasure hunt storyline tho. and as much as the controversy goes...there were some things that made sense like..the architecture!! (makes u wanna go france)...and what Robert in the movie said..."what matters is what you choose to believe" (so very post-modernist ya). guess it's Dan Browns way of defending himself..whether he believes his own story or not...he also said something about one protecting most what one believes in....which explains all the banning and anger over the story. Even the story can't prove the truth of the story it tells...it just makes it realistic enough for us to choose which of the two to believe.

what do you believe?

Narnia

I'm so late. i onli finished watching it yesterday. but it's a lil disappointing...other than the story line which is C.S. Lewis'. but other than the underlying meanings that were meaningful, just feel the characters lack characterization..they're kinda bland. quite disappointing. the cinimatogrphy is good la...some what like Lord of the Rings but can't beat LOTR either.

now i wonder if DaVinci's gonna be as bad either...at least i think the characters' acting won't be that bad...just somewhat ready for the disappointment..as in it won't be as good as the book. just like Narnia. oh whell...with all the movie spree (went to watch MI:III with mum & mei juz now...great action..and quite gd la). then looking forward to the much awaited X-men 3. so much movies. gee. i'll stop after X-men. watching movies nowadays are a waste of money.

hai...talking about money is a complicated thing. money goes out so fast. comes in so slow.

whell...and i read this "Living with less to enjoy more" by Mark Tabb
In long..just go to the webbie....
in short...
"The goal of bringing order to the life we live in the material world goes back to what we really want out of life. Your life and mine can be used by God to touch and change generations. Our lives can matter when they are spent on that which lasts....
Saying no to ourselves is never fun. As Francis Schaeffer said, “We are surrounded by a culture that says ‘no’ to nothing. When we are surrounded with this sort of mentality, in which everything is to be judged by bigness and success, then suddenly to be told that in the Christian life there is to be this strong negative aspect of saying ‘no’ to things and ‘no’ to self, it must seem hard. And if it does not feel hard to us, we are not really letting it speak to us."

10 suggestions:
1. Live below your means, rather than beyond them
How much do I really need this? What do you really want out of life anyway? When a lifestyle of consumption robs us of fulfilling our purpose for living, cutting back on things like eating out or buying clothes is an easy choice to make.
2. Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status
Look for value, not trends. Get the most out of your money and buy what is useful, not what will impress people you don’t know or like.
3. Don’t believe the hype
Most ads try to convince us our lives will be somehow happier if we buy their product. Don’t believe it.
4. De-accumulate
De-accumulating also means not buying things unless and until you actually need them. Compulsive purchases rarely translate into a wise use of resources. When you buy things, use them until they need to be replaced.
5. Spend wisely.
We should spend our money wisely, treating it like it belongs to God, since it does.
6. Leave room for extravagance
Using our resources wisely does not mean we never splurge. God sometimes splurges on us and there are times we should splurge on others.
7. Invest your resources in people, not stuff
The best way to have a heart for people, then, is to invest our treasures in them. For families, this means spending money on things that will draw you closer and build the bonds of love between you.
8. Give to your local church
9. Enjoy what you have as a gift from God
Often when we focus on using money wisely, we forget to enjoy what we have. Looking at everything you have as a gift from God leads you to a life of constantly giving thanks rather than longing for more.
10. Avoid becoming a legalistic jerk
When we begin to see our lives as superior or more spiritual than others because of the way we use our money, we haven’t simplified our lives; we’ve just made ourselves unbearable to be around.

ok...so i think i won't go watch X-men 3....but if my mum & sis wants to...i'll join them...and whops..choices. and balance...just like what Pastor jiami preached today and more.

Apple ads

Yeah...it is..here

Ha...no matter what i'm an Apple fan...and it's cool that apple is friendly...next time i can run windows programs on a mac without putting up with the problems of a PC. ahahaa...sorrie guys...i've been brainwashed. i luv apple.

and phuket? sigh...maybe not. :S sadly. unhappily not. as much as i'm dying to go. super sian.

can't sleep still...it's 2am. and there's church tmr...but i'm blinking wide awake..and can't sleep. so i'm here. mayb i'll continue watching the rest of the narnia dvd.....

Of politics, fun & life

So much to talk about, so much that had happened and to happen.

Ww & I celebrated our 5th mth anniversary early..on monday. nothing to fancy this month, just went to airport to aim our fav salmon fish at the food court. but we reached a lil late (8.10pm) and all was closed :( we wandered arnd and found Popyes..quite nice leh...yumsss. then wandered arnd to find our fav Pacific coffee cafe at the airport corner to drink coffee & talk. great, how somewat boring way to celebrate annivesaries? actually we kinda like it, eating stuff we like (and not spending much), having a gd atmosphere to chitchat, and not too far from home. and this mth i said "happy anniversary" first. ahaahaha.

fast forward to our actual annivesary day....went to hang out at Shihua's place. see her wedding & honeymoon photos..and had all the nice cool gifty stuff from her. luv-ed her photo gift..it's a photo book actually, and gift frm NZ, and oh dun try to guess wat's that's black furry thing la. makes me wanna go for holiday...itch itch itch.

and politics? in the office and out of the office...these things do get complicated...and somehow it feels a lil maddening that ppl aren't direct enough. dun like, say lah...rather than harbour it and feel mo and mo unhappy abt it and towards the person. and then spread gossip about the person. think it's so unjustified. ok...not everyone does la...Y says i too naive le. hmm...yeah mayb or i'm also not sensitive enough to see the hints. but still get the hint is also 2nd guessing...what if one 2nd guess wrongly leh? ok la...not everyone know how to be direct, or at least if not direct can learn to forget it. and it's not as bad as i put it to be anyway...but well..gettin to know a bit better abt how some things work

having expectations for the sake of having expectations. that's wat ww says...abt my mil. ok....so buy milk. i've been coming back home late everyday i'm too tired to shop even a bit, much less buy breakfast. dun have to feel u're responsible for my bfast, and not be happy i din settle my own bfast. aie...a bit complicated. anyway other than me & ww, no one else drinks the milk much. anyway ww think's they're finding something tosi pick. having expectations for the sake of having them. stuff like washing clothes, or ironing or folding them. tho...on average i come home at 11plus...everything's done. hmm...ok half blurting for the sake of blurting. so dun think living with in-laws is all that easy for me either. aiya...it's still quite interesting and good la. just i've expected there'll be bound to have differences. the way of doing things are always different.
i can't stand it that a piece of clothing should take 15 mins to iron, my standard is that as long as flat and straight good le, a lil bit of crumple still acceptable (coz i used to take 1 1/2 hrs to iron a mountain of clothes...no time to scrutinize everything and make sure everything's perfect). no time no time...so cannot spend too long perfecting housework. tho my fav housework is washing dishes. next time i'll get the imermaid frm Osim so i dun have to mop the floors..heh..
so having our own place is still gd somehow la...then i'll decide how messy my house gets..hiak hiak... (gosh and i'm thinking of an entirely white study room!...dun worry white isn't as difficult to maintain as everyone thinks). it's also why i'll never cook unless i'm bac at my mum's place...coz really not my kithen la...if it's mine i'm not afraid to get it dirty (and clean it up later). so i'm also looking forward to our new house...because there'll be so much storage space! (or at least we'll be planning for quite abit of storage).

i'm too sleepy to carry on writing le....yanws...another day

Designing our home

We did finally sit down to talk about what more exactly how we want for our new home. We did know that we wanted to carve out a study room out of the huge living room & etc...but this time we discussed in more detail. Ww'll say anything also can...but still he'll have his preferences ie (shoe rack shouldn't be full height). ok ok. it's still better to do it together...ok..it's kinda fun stuff for couples to do.

so yay!...we're happy with what we might have. then it's up to me to do up the details and...err...do my own quotation for my own house. how interesting. and i realize that there are restrictions...ie...i saw this!! ayee...how to find it in SG? woo...thot it'll be cool to have it for our dining area backdrop. since we have the whoooolllee wall that's plain. but it's in US..so by the time it does get shipped here it'll be so ex. sad sad. and Ww will say it's frivilous. yeah...ok it is, even if i ask the plaster-ppl to do the art work think it's still not gonna be cheap. whell...it's the kinda stuff u do on a wall that u can change every 3-5 years. that acrilyic shelf called Pog is quite interesting too...it's for commercial display shelves..but why not at home? since nowadays ppl always want ledges (and custom made ones really don't come cheap)..maybe i'll ask the carpenter to do one similar to this..heh heh.


I love the spaciousness of our new house...it's really too big actually. But since young, i love large houses....or mayb coz i'm influenced by my mum...the bigger the better. (i still love shop houses...my dream house) Sometimes we wonder if we had bought a house too soon. Yeah..maybe. We didn't really have to actually.
And we saw this place and fell in love with it. It's that aha moment. You know when you see it and just fall in love with the space (i know i can't stand that eeky green wall tiles, green floor tiles, green cabinets, green marble top...but that's besides the point..we are hacking those away anyway). 5-room flats prices are still falling somewhat...and we also did buy with the concern that the property market will pick up. whell...seems like not.

whell...such a big house..but we aren't gonna live on our own la. my in-laws will move in with us...also in hope that when they move in with us, they won't bring the altar along and so won't bai4 bai4 le...they're also part of the conspiracy...haha..it'll make it easier for my FIL to explain to his bros why he can't keep that ancestoral altar anymore. We know that it's more than just the physical altar..but a lot more notions about God needs to be clarified and believed...and we pray that this move will break down the obstacles that prevent them from coming to God. and we know it's also more than just the move...it's God. but we try and we pray.

and i'm busy! dreaming of details...furniture details. drives me nuts sometimes...just not satisfied with a normal handle, a normal sliding handle etc etc wateva. had a wild thot of opening a furniture shop when i saw the 'for rent' sign at a shophouse while i was having lunch with my chic pie. oh whel...

name definitions

fenxia -- [adjective]: Banshee-like 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

what on earth is Banshee-like???

grace -- [noun]: A real life terminator 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

now what does that mean????

weiwen -- [noun]: A human transformer (Robot in disguise) 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

hahahaha....

oh..back to work...so many thigns to do...

I-KAE-IEA

Guess who's here!
right at the tampines expressway...saw this on my way back from my site. woohoo...no more travelling to the other end of the world to go ikea. just take 27 or 168 and i can't remem wat other buses coz they'ren't familiar to me. i'm an ikea fan! ok...so some of the materials they used isn't the best quality...but some are good enough, and cheap. whell...it's another 2 mo years for it to be ready.

Inspiration - Adversity - prayer

i had so much i wanted to type, i don't even know what to title-ize. i made a super-achievement in learning a new 3D rendering programe (because they don't have AutoCAD...but a not bad & fast rendering programme). super achievement coz i had a 20mins crash course and the rest was just up to me to toggle around...only to have someone say....don't you think 3D looks so unreal and fake...argh..bleah. hai...i know...but it's loads better than me trying to hand draw (i'm so pathetic at that). they don't teach us that in architecture school.

this was a bished out day...because i went to work super early to do the rendering and went for tuitions till 10pm. so i'm just happy sitting here, listening to my new cd, ranting all kinds of stuff and reading other stuff. i still have a lil bit of work left to do for tmr's appointment..mayb later.

too many things happened in the weekend, not in a bad sense but in a a-lot-of-things sense. (my first time i polled!), too many tuitions, cgl cell, watching the election results, bball match, lunch with my ex-colleague, and last night we had a trial run food tasting for HueHuang...we ate till we were so full...i was so full i couldn't eat bfast this morning. i'm itching to post the yummicious pics up...but for the sake of the suspense i'll save it for another time. pray this will be a meaningful meal...not just for the new friends coming, even the old friends we have not seen for a long time, but a reminder that God is in everything...u'll know why.

and i wondered that in adversity we have a deeper experience of God...and in adversity we have a greater opportunity for a testimony for God. just reflections from chapter of 'Perspectives" by Colin Creel. he writes about a friend whose father passed away 2 weeks before his wedding...and his friend's message at the wedding rehersal..."The good my father did was because of Christ. You didn't love my father; you loved Christ in him." even at his death, the Gospel was preached, through his life. i think our aim isn't to have such a eulogy at the end of our life but the aim is that we do all the good things because of Christ.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything" James 1:2-4

my trial now? my busyness and God. refining my itsy bitsy rough edges all around, how can i love ppl more when it's hard to love them...though they aren't really bad bad bad trials, but i don't want to have the bad ones come to forget that i need to consider it pure joy.

Colin writes "May we all embrace our trials as learning opportunities, knowing that the "Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him" Nah 1:7. Let us be legacies for Christ. Let us allow Christ to work through us so that others might be drawn to the well where the water never runs dry."

and i wonder...if ppl in the current times have a sabbath? was talking to aaron yesterday and he was saying something about the importance of having a sabbath. i told him it's hard...i can't seem to find mine and i dun think so for Ww either, no it's not a saturday or a sunday.(but thank God it's exams time coz he doesn't have to bring his marking home and is watching tv or reading newspapers). maybe they should really really have an eighth day and force ppl to stay at home, not go out and spend time with family (and not watch tv so that the tv ppl dun have to work), and ah...spend extended time with God. Gosh...God had a fantastic way, then in ancient times, for ppl to really have a rest day. i want to go overseas for a holidaaayyyy. Europe soon...*grin*


oh and the so beautiful sunset view at church....:) captured while we were waiting for our chef-tress to prepare the food.

I wanted to write something

Yeah i wanted to leh..but coz ww wanted to sleep le...and i thot i'll come back to write but after talking talking i fell asleep as well. and left the comp on till 1plus am when i suddenly woke up and remembered to switch it off.

later gotta go poll...then got 2 tuitions. :S thot i could go out with Ww in the afternoon for a 'date', but by the time it's after my tuition i think too late le...dun wanna come home late either. sunday got early practice so dun wanna sleep too late. tho weekends is kinda a tricky thing to plan, coz i go over to my mum's place...it's ok if i dun have too many things on sunday...but tmr got bball match...and the mafan part is i have to bring 2 sets of clothes and bulky sports shoes. argh. now...should i come home to change or come home after the match and go back to church for the huehuang trial run?? decisions decisions. must save on my transport costs...it's gone up to $150 per mth le :S

paishe...complain complain...i think gals just like to do that...after saying it all out...i feel better. whops. it isn't gonna solve anything...i still have to make the decision but somehow writing it out makes me see it clearer.

another time...

trying to blog nothing

i seem to lose steam in blogging something useful or meaningful. mayb it's just work and little time to think...and no mood. oh it's coming to the end of week and i'm looking forward to the weekend somehow. lookin fwd to cgl cell coz we (or more like i) haven't met for 2 mths le.

there may be some things that i can blabber and blabber on about but for some reasons i can't seem to. and as for work, for the sake of confidentiality i shouldn't really talk much in the details of it (those technical stuff, business related stuff). oh but thank God for my colleague yan who's a great help and friend, answering all my questions and being of great company. thank God for sera who's also great to talk to, we're all getting to know each other better and i thank God for a christian colleague in my office to talk and share with. going to eat shuijiao mian for dinner with her tmr at the round market. quite a blessing that we stay so close (she's like staying a block away frm my mum's house).

i was walking to church after my tuition yesterday...it's just a 15min walk linear path frm bedok nth ave 1 till church...and it was cloudy and misty...

reminds me of those dreary english pathways. and it's so blur because i was walking as i was taking this. just shows there're interesting scenes we don't always take note about.

how good is the progress package?

My friend asked why am i so busy. errr...coz i work, i teach tuition, spend time with family, go chuch, go cell, go music prac, help Ww mark stuff, meet friends. ok ok ok...it's enough to keep me out of the house such that i hardly ever watch tv. my colleague lent me Narnia the movie, and i haven't had time to even try taking the cd out of the cover.

being too busy isn't really good sometimes because in trying to catch up with all the demands of the activities i hadn't had time to spend in peaceful quiet time with God. it's not that i don't commuticate with Him, i do, in the bus, walking from one place to another, in rapid moments, but hardly quiet. quiet in terms of no distractions. because not being quiet doesn't give me time to reflect at times. (yet reflected inspirations does come in spurts in non-quiet times as well).

it is the exams week, so tuitions have increased by almost double. good and bad coz my work as somewhat increased as well, there are more things to follow up. good because it's a gd cashflow for this dry month.

Ww & I were like discussing whether we should do our reno earlier and take a reno loan instead. coz no matter how we save so far, the savings weren't as fast as we planned. yups the progress package was quite a bonus. (and i still dread trying to go to the posb bank to just draw a mere $20...so many many ppl!!! can't they leave the money inside?) oh well...we didn't either...took it out to invest anyway. ok yeah mayb they did that coz leaving it inside posb doesn't earn enough interest at all. and my father-in-law was quite gleeful this morning after he updated his passbook coz there was extra cash the gov put in for senior citizens or something. well giving away money for free is such smart thingy the gov thot about...everyone's happy. interesting.

so will we or will we not renovate soon? ah whell...in the end it's still a mystery. we'll think of it when we have time again. i haven't thought enough about what we want for the house, gotta solve the ceiling dripping problem first. maybe june will be a better time to ponder over it, when Ww's not like drowning in his marking (thank God he finished 3 batches of compositions this long weekend).

we know God will provide...and we're praying for wisdom to spend money wisely, and save it at the right place as well.

oh even how busy we are...we'll always find time for good food and dinner at mum's always a little different...coz my mum's always trying out new dishes but all equally fun and delicious.

carrot-orange soup with bread, baked fish with some chilli sauce, yoghurt-cucumber-onion salad (this doesn't match the dish tho) and some veg. now...can u guess which is Ww's dish?
oh woe is us who hasn't execerised much all this while.