Discovered!

It's like 1am and i got meeting tmr at 9am and a long long day becos of work & tuitions & end off with a chill out time with my 81' batch of ppl. gosh it's amazing how i can have so much energy. anyway writing is therapeutic for me and helps me sort out my thoughts...

and then with Ww letting the cat out of the bag, this place as become a little bit more public than i expected...this is what happens when your name is too unique. (the last i searched for my name ended up with some person practicing falungong) i tried searching my name again on google and discovered where the leak came from...basically 2 searchable public blogs of my friends. it's amazing how google searches that particular word from some sites and do not search out some sites either...like my chic pie's one which must be quite private.

so a Hi Hi *waves* to Ww's aka Mr.Chua's kids who has been talking a lot about marshmallows because he has been feeding them 600 of them altogether, depending on the number of some kind of adjectives they use in a poem or text. and nopez, he doesn't give me any coz i didn't use any of those adjectives in my poetry as i haven't written poetry for a long time. i was telling him Watsons must be wondering why their marshmallows are selling so well...we completely cleared the shelves of their choc ones.
and i'm too lazy to put up a tag board coz it's too inconvenient to figure out the html stuff, i'm satisfied enough with the pre-made layouts blogger provides tho i would love to redesign it but...nah...i have better things to do.
and of cos MC does treat me properly, tho how to rephrase that...hoho...he treats me very well. he's a wonderful husband, humourous and thoughtful, loving and inspiring, smart and a godly man, almost selfless and with a big heart for others as well and many more.

thank God for today's work which has been quite fruitful but hopefully i can cope with the mounting load that seems to be coming on my way..woh...
so it's the weekend..my manager's wedding! exciting :) hope they don't end too late tho...still wanna get to my mum's place early enough to pei2 my meimei.

nitz

Morning writes

i read this today and was quite tickled (the way the writer describes it). how did the english bible came about wasn't an easy thing to start with. for one...i'm so used to see the versions of the bible, little did it occur to me that King James version was really started off by King James 1 himself...and one of the 1st authorized english version. and while i've read of how the people in OT will wash themselves everytime they come to the word God when copying the bible, it's kinda interesting how the modern technology, which is the printing press, made grave mistakes like missing out the not in "Thou shalt covet thy neighbour's wife." which got that version named as "The Wicked Bible." It has been a long way...

this isn't a link i can link coz it's a newletter and i can't find this article on their webbie so i'm gonna dump it here and fill up the space:
"(Editor's Note: The following is adapted from Pocket Guide to the Bible: A Little Book About the Big Book, which releases 06/06/06 from RELEVANT Books.)

Contrary to popular belief, the Bible didn't just drop from heaven one day bound in black leather and with helpful tabs for looking up obscure Old Testament books like Obadiah. Those tabs? We added them. We also thought up putting the words of Christ in red and dividing the long books into chapter and verse. And around the 14th century or so, we thought up the idea of translating the Bible into English. An Oxford professor and philosopher named John Wycliffe was one of the first guys to attempt it. Why? Because he thought the Bible ought to be something that could be read by normal people, as opposed to scholars and clergy, who were the only folks around who could read Latin. (The Bible was written, of course, in Hebrew and Greek, but the Church had been reading the Vulgate, St. Jerome's Latin translation of the Scriptures, for nearly 1,000 years.)

So Wycliffe sets out to produce an English version. It gets him killed, as church leaders didn't take too kindly to his unauthorized idea. A couple of centuries later, William Tyndale tries again, this time using this fantastic new technology known as the printing press. He gets killed, too. More reformers come around, more burnings-at-the-stake occur, but by the time the 16th century rolls around—thanks to mega-reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin—the Bible-translation club starts to really get huge. Most of these translations are unauthorized, but they're becoming more and more frequent.

In 1605, under pressure from the Church of England to produce an authorized version of the Bible they can read from without feeling all dirty inside, James I assembles a crack team of 54 Bible scholars, including the professors of Greek and Hebrew from Oxford and Cambridge. James divides them into six groups. Two teams go to Oxford, two head for Cambridge, and two set up camp in Westminster.

James assigns each team a certain part of the Bible, and they work separately on these sections. The various drafts are then rotated around for criticism and clarification until the full crew reaches a consensus. By the time 1611 rolls around, the revisions are complete and everybody's on board.

And so in 1611, the Authorized Version rolls off the presses and into history. Here in the United States, we call it the King James Version, but across the pond and throughout Europe, it's simply known as the Authorized Version (AV). The title page indicates the long-awaited work is "appointed to be read in churches," but other than that phrase—and the fact that His Royal Highness Jimmy the First got the enchilada cooking in the first place—there's no formal statement of this Bible's authoritativeness.

Three editions of the AV roll out that first year, each including the Apocrypha (the books the Catholic Church believes to be canonical, but Protestants don't) and a couple of prefatory documents. One of these prefaces is an oozing dedication letter to King James, calling him the "[principal] Author and Mover of the work" and God's darkness-dispelling sunshiny gift to the worthy inhabitants of England and blah-blah-bootlicking-blah. The other preface is more valuable: a long memo from the translators to the reader, describing with great enthusiasm the necessity and value of the translation. Along the way, it can't resist taking a couple of potshots at the Catholic Church for keeping its Vulgated membership in the dark, scripturally speaking, for years and years and years. Protestant Bible scholars loooove this preface, but it doesn't get printed much anymore.

What does get printed, at least in the first three years of the version's existence, is a slate of new editions of the AV. This is primarily because each edition has more typographical mistakes than Solomon had wives. The first AVs are littered with misprints. And each attempt to correct these holy typos seems to result in an unholy mess of new ones. Moveable type is cool and everything, but there's no undo command when you mislabel 1 Chronicles as 1 Corinthians (as one of the 1611 printings does). Or when you mistakenly attribute Christ's dialogue in the Garden of Gethsemane to none other than Judas. Gulp.

Then there's the most offensive (and/or swingin') misprint ever: a 1631 edition of the AV that conspicuously forgets the all-important not in Exodus 20:17. Yep, right there in the middle of the Ten Commandments. Published by Barker and Lewis, the king's printers, the resulting seventh commandment reads: "Thou shalt covet thy neighbour's wife." As a result of this gaffe, all sorts of extramarital Elizabethan-era lovin' ensues. (At least, that's the fallout as imagined by the Pocket Guide.) Saucy conjecture aside, the mistake earns this edition an unflattering nickname: "The Wicked Bible."

Meanwhile, the importance of the King James Bible can't be overstated. Prior to the publication of the AV, a new English translation of the Bible seemed to crop up at least once a decade. Yet in the years after 1611, the only English translations printed are variations on the same Authorized Version.

It's not until the late 19th century—when the Revised Version applies new scholarship to the field of biblical translation—that any major translations or revisions compete with King James and his Authorized Version. The upshot is that it becomes possibly the most influential literary work ever. Its language and imagery color the writings of Bunyan, Milton, Shakespeare, Longfellow, Keats, Melville, Whitman and just about every other luminary in the English literary canon—making it one of the principal building blocks of the English we still speak and write today. The King James Bible is important. So quit sniggering when you trip over the word "ass" every once in a while in the Old Testament.

Jason Boyett is the author of Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse (RELEVANT Books) and Pocket Guide to Adulthood (RELEVANT Books). He owns at least nine Bibles of various sizes and translations, and lives in Texas with his wife and their two young children."

I think it was during the retreat, a thot came back ...of one day creating a SG christian website with good christian writers that may one day turn into a mag. one day i hope (i think coz pastor qiu was talking abt the mag Impact)

meanwhile, we were laughing over this at work (and a lot of other superman pics but this is the best)...super chang jin. it's great he could go korea. i think his head a bit small tho.

A many things weekend

so much so that Ww dozed off before he even could get started with his marking/planning (and that's after reading the Sun's newspapers & checkin email). it was already 8pm.
the good Dragon boat exercise requires lots of food and sleep after that to recover. so we went to Han's for dinner...had time to talk about the retreat & other stuff. meanwhile not feelin the ache yet. since Ww's like half-asleep by 830pm, we decided to sleep early (record sleeping time for me: 9pm!)...and then wake up the next day at 4am for Mac bfast...then Ww can do his plannig & marking aft that till he goes to school. and yes we did it! ahahahaa....i was afraid that there'll not be any Mac bfast at 4am but yays! it starts from 4am - 11am. i'm hoping i won't be to sleepy later in the day...

i would have so much to write about. and there are things i'm still digesting about what to write. but in short...
- poor meimei's trip to Xiamen was cancelled due to the typhoons. at first it's the flight that was cancelled, then the earliest was monday evening their competition organizers couldn't (or wouldn't) their competition trials. poor meimei...it would have been her first plane flight
- zone retreat cell planning was fruitful :) enjoyed the times cell spent time to share. though it as in the whole camp didn't exactly feel like very cohesive...(yeah i mulled over this abt wat A said). esp with ppl going in and out..tho there are many who also stayed thruout. that's the problem with having a retreat in homeland. too bad we couldn't have it at tioman. and maybe we weren't involved enough (ie organizing stuff and games and doing things together). and we were near the beach! but didn't get to go to the beach...
Dragon boat had enough people in the end...initially with ppl drawing out and more and more from more than 22 till there's like 17 ppl but somehow the numbers came back. more ppl then not so tiring mah. but it was fun (and still tiring!)! Ww was deciding whether to go since the night before, and then he said he would go, and then he thought he wouldn't go (cos he wanted to finish his endless marking/planning)...and then after being 'threatened' (haa..or cajouled) in the guys toilet by some of our bros, he did go, which was good for him also (it's a whole body workout...enough to work your shoulders, thighs, arms). thank God for the weather! i was afraid it would rain and ruin our dragon day out.

oh the sun, salt and sand! i luv the beach! too bad we didn't take any photos of our pushing the boat in and out of the water, our rowing and the scenery....this is the closest we got at changi











and the rain threatened us to go back...*shake fist at rain cloud*

of cos i find retreats are excuses to pig out in the morning and at night. so we finished up the tub of ice-cream, ym prob finished the chips too, the green tea left lying around, and the anonymous pack of apple chips. (why is there so much food lying around?? there's choc cookie, peanut butter crackers, cup noodles, chocolate)

this was all who was left on sat night and what better stuff to do than eat and chat after bath...and a game of Phase 10 (or Phase 5 to be exact coz it was like 2++am by the time we finished the game) on the queen size mattress which Ww says we look like tortises perching on a rock in the middle of the pond.

i think i'm getting fat the way i'm eating...MIL baked cakes again...and it's so nice...
it's gonna be a bz week (but i like it) and i'm waiting for my big big proj to start...wooo...

On days to spend

i shopped with my colleague at Watsons (sale! lotsa $1.95 stuff...and buy 10 get 1 free...in the end i had problems trying to add up to 11 items..while i was having problems at that, my colleague collected 22 items liao)
i shopped at big bookshop (helping ww buy stationery stuff too)
i shopped at bossini...oh not me...Ww bought 3 shirts at one go (exactly the same kind juz different colour!) coz he's getting bored with the shirts that he has, it's buy 2 get 1 free and i couldn't find anything i like.
our pay was coming in lah...this is what happens when pay comes in...like bonuses in mid-year (all civil servants will know)...so spend!

from

How do you define success?
What is success in your eyes? Owning a nice home, having a good family, being a faithful friend, attending church refularly and obeying the law are some common definitions of success.
...
Happiness comes from the belief that God's design for me was a good one. He wired you with idiosyncrasies taht you may not like but also with wonderful qualities that can benefit you and others.
...
Henri Nouwen said, "The question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? But: Are you in love with Jesus?
...
The long-term goal of your spiritual life (everyone has a spiritual life-it creates the longings for happiness and joy in us) is to find contentment. Contentment can only be found in Christ.
...
For the Christian success comes not from the money or power or fame but from brokenness. For it is in brokenness that Jesus begins to mean more to us than ever before.
...
Where you turn in your moments of pain as well as celebratory moments will determine how successful you are in God's eyes.

success...contentment. so much things we are looking for. and all we need is God. but then what's next?

Reading a lot

i'm reading
Newspapers..i still haven't read today's one
Real Simple mag (i bought it yesterday coz i was itching to buy something..just something!)
my devotional
my bible
Time mag
Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado
Relevant mag (the print version)


there's so much to read! and do...coz i've been collating a database of ID images...i have 3Ds to draw on ArchiCad (but that i can do only at work and wish there's a better prog than ArchiCAD to draw 3D)

then i'm trying to figure out this BookSmart programme and thinking of something like this...but sadly it only ships in USA & Canada :(


it creates any kind of book with a programme to do it as well...ewww...i want it tooooo...just like the iphoto book..it doesn't ship in to SG. there must be some way anyway...

happiness and money...& food & sleep

It's the end of a not-so-good week. but i'm somewat getting on better and not feelin so complainy or unhappy....so i'm kinda ending this week in a happy note. whelll could have been the money because i got paid for most of my tuitions this week...but i think it was more of the food i've been eating. i somehow started enjoying 'sinful' food from thurs and it's been good...cakes, fried food, coffee, more cakes and other delicious food. and in some weird way, food did make me happy....actually the other thing that made me happy was being in the company of people...meeting up with my parents irish friends was a welcome break, and meeting up with jh to try her dress....which we ended up at Aiwo at Raffles city to try out their healthy buffet. it really IS healthy..but too much veg for my liking...i couldn't eat anymore quite quickly. look the serving is so small! and i was so full after that.

New Zealand ice-cream towards end of the night and more chats.

we were talking about all kinds of things, and money. how somehow our parents can save up like tons of money so easily and our somehow disappears days before our next payday. where did all the money go?? how to save like that? i deduced that coz we're young and start collecting the debts in life (education, car, house, travel, etc) while our parents somehow have cleared their debts le. ok...i know it'll differ from family to family...and interestingly a large proportion of my expenditures goes into fixed stuff more than entertainment..(Ww & I keep a record of everything that we spend...literally everything..as long as we don't forget. it is really a good way to keep track and watch how we spend)

today i was reading this article given out during sunday school about happiness & money. The Real Truth About Money: Why we remain keen for green even though it often gives us more social anxiety than satisfaction by Gregg Easterbrook. it says that "there is no significant r/s b/w how much money a person earns and whether he or she feels good about life"....
"paradoxically, it is the very increase in money-which creates the wealth so visible in today's society-that triggers dissatisfaction.As material expectations keep rising, more money may engender only more desires."
"...there is a final reason money can't buy happiness: the thing that really matter in life are not sold in stores. Love, friendship, family, respect, a place in the community, the belief that your life has purpose - those are the essentials of human fulfillment, and they cannot be purchased with cash.
Everyone needs a certain amount of money, but chasing money rather than meaning is a formula for discontent. Too many Americans have made materialism and the cycle of work and spend their principal goals. Then they wonder why they don't feel happy."

yeah..like Paul writes in Philippians 4:11-13 " I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

come to think of it...i am contented. i'm happy with where i am. i happy with where i'm going. i'm happy with what i have...and ok with what i don't have. i know there will be things that come by to distress me, things to challenge me, things that may not go the way i expect or want. but i know that all these things are a part of God's purpose and will...life is really more meaningful this way and there's much to be learnt.

anyway meimei's going Xiamen for choir trip...her first airplane experience...excited for her! ha....and as usual i was borrowing her clothes for dinner last night. and took this pic with the help of the mirror and find ourselves really similar...when i look closer i realize we've got similar front teeth...and meimei thinks she's taller than me. oh duh...

still are the days

Quick! i hope this week passes by soon. and somehow this dreary feelin has been with me since monday. i'm looking forward for this feelin to be over. and it's irritating when i need to pass each day with this feeling, yet not knowing how to get rid of it...neither do i know why is it here. it somewhat feels like a crisis or is it?

i go to work and the interest that was there wasn't there anymore. maybe it's also because i don't have much to do so there's isn't much to look forward to. tho today i'm looking forward to today because i was going to go out with my parents old friends from Ireland. though i forgot i had tuition...and oh...i'm looking forward to tmr because there's gonna be a cgl cell and dinner with my parents irish friends. im looking forward to sunday because it's the day to worship God in church with many other christians (and i feel like i haven't been to church for a long time after missing it last week because i was sick)..and because i want to go for christianity and culture sunday school. i realize that these are the things that makes my life meaningful...being in the fellowship of other christians. and being stuck at home is kinda sian. but then back to work on monday and i'm wondering what i can start doing....considering my leads are like making me wait for eternal and i have no more leads. occasionally i'm feelin like i'm not able to do the work..or not up to it, or that i don't have the ability to do as well as others. i don't wish to be so negative but sometimes these thoughts get to me and bring me down.

of cos a wonderful thing always is to spend time with Ww...it's something to look forward as well. we did go to our fav hangout last monday for coffee at pacific cafe at airport T1. it's a rare time we went to airport in the daytime...and isn't too used to the brightness + sun shining at our seat.
and being at the departure hall, we wondered when will we get to go overseas again..esp aftera great time at melbourne last year. while i'll be missing this phuket trip with friends in sep (coz we've gotta save up for our reno...and Ww hinted how can i go without him esp coz it's right smack after the sep hols). ok....i'm looking forward for our europe trip end of next year...but it's more than 365 more days to go. geeez.

i wish i can learn to appreciate the things i have instead on harping on the things i don't. to learn to thank God for the things that He has given and even those that He hasn't. to enjoy being myself instead of wanting to be like others. to remember that God loves me more than i'll ever be able to understand. to understand that nothing happens in my life that first does not get filtered through the hands of God...God is sovereign, and He is in control. and as a result, it's up to me to choose to live my life based upon the truth of who God is and put faith in His Word vs the feelings and circumstances that i may be experiencing. to remember that God has a plan for my life. As a result, what happens is part of that plan, and it is for my good and God's glory.

These are the days

i was thinking of blogging that it's has been sweaty and hot for many days and today it rained refreshing beautiful rain.

these are the days i feel like doing something else, these are the days i wish were holidays...sighs. these are the days i find myself aimless and lost, yet i'm somewhere. maybe it's because i don't have much at my job to do that's why i'm feelin like that. and i want to get something done but can't seem to. or is it because i'm losing my sense of purpose?

about work...it's been slow actually, and as much as i don't want to, i wondered if it would have been better if i've taken the other job. or maybe i just need to bear it through this period. i finding it a little difficult to articulate and figure out what i am feelin in this period of time. then there are times i wondered what it would be like if i were a teacher, or something else or someone else.

i'm itching to go for a holiday. i miss the times when we were in melbourne.

maybe all i want is just not to have any worries.

maybe i just need to talk it out to know what i'm being so sian about.

Lord help me to see this in your perspective.

On the road to recovery

It's been like 5 days i'm sick...now the 'sickness' has been reduced to phlegm-y cough and the still painful throat. i'm better and my appetite is back but alas i can't enjoy the food coz it hurts to swallow. (got 3 ulcers at the entrance of my throat) and the only reason i eat is because i have to eat my meds. i don't even finish my meals. it gives me satisfaction to throw away the rest of my meal because eating it just tortures me more.

Yesterday, i sought solace at my mum's place from the boys and enjoyed some nuaing in front of the tv. tho we ended up going to Jade restaurant for dinner which i could have enjoyed. the porridge is really great tasting but i barely ate 1/3 of it. and i had to finish the soup which almost made me cry swallowing every spoonful. (salt and ulcers makes life terrible)


when i went back to office today my boss told me i looked thinner. (oh really!) that's the advantage of being so sick...lose weight at the same time, (considering how little i ate in these 5 days).

things are looking up, i hope. my old projects are finishing (praying hard there's no extra other issues) and i'm hoping for a new one to start soon. i'm trying to pick up the pieces of life i've left behind these days of being in a different world.

God is my strength when i am weak...

a bag of pills

this is what happens when i'm sick and have nothing better to do. blog and take photos of my medicine. i get a lil confused as to what to eat sometimes...should i con't eating this or that? i only take the high fever meds when my fever goes up to 38++ degrees, which happens in the morning and night. there's one that says to eat twice a day...and another to take in the morning


i'm not that bed-ridden tho, the fever's clearing up and it's not so bad but what has come was a very bad painful sore throat. it got so bad i went to see the doc again this morning. she gave a stronger antibiotics and strepsils which was quite a relief for me because just simple swallowing is like gulping down pins and needles.
anyway the conclusion is that i've got throat infection aka Tonsillitis. which i suspect was caused by a combination of heatiness, not enough water and coming in contact with a sneezing friend. this is the worst i've been sick i think...and the only energy sapping thing i've done in these days of recuperating is go for tuition (which almost drained me dry because the meds was making me drowsy), and entertaining my nephews. i thot of taking refuge in my mum's place but the hot sun deterred me from stepping out of the house so i ended up still at home and trying to bear the disturbances of the mischevious boys.
I'm obviously not getting anything constructive done...other than sleeping. had a good afternoon nap though. and i sound weird.
pls pray i get better by tomorrow. there's a lot of stuff going on tmr. it's really not fun being sick. :S
meanwhile...God is my strength when i am weak...