霸王餐

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FREE LUNCH! FREE LUNCH!!
Hahaha today is first time I eat 霸王餐. Went to Ang Mo Kio for lunch with my colleagues and ordered Curry Fish Head. The auntie hastily delivered the Fish Head to our table without asking for payment and whisked off to serve other customers. Guessed we all assumed that someone has paid for the Fish Head so we "conveniently" left the food centre and drove back after lunch. It is only later when we were working out how much each has to pay for lunch that we realized noone paid for the food, hahaha, my friend immediately ran to his car and drove back to the food centre to pay :) Woah! 霸王餐!

S-L-O-O-O-W Week
Wah this week is really a slow week... with most of my colleagues on leave and my volunteers away on holiday or taking a short break during the last week of the year... time just seemed to tick by. Gave me time to do some research on volunteer management and think about the focus for the next year...

Naughty Little "Terrorist" Me
I had been tasked by my celll group to take charge of the countdown segment for Saturday's gathering so I made my way down to Concourse after work to buy some party poppers, balloons etc. Ended up with a whole red plastic bag of party poppers, sparklers, balloons, "pop-pop" bombs. And silly me actually walked into a MRT station with all these... it didn't occur to me that these are flammable items until my friend pointed it out to me and all along the trip, I was really praying that I won't get stopped for security check (especially since the whole nation is gearing up for a large scale emergency exercise sometime within these few weeks) :) Felt like a little "terrorist" bring around a bag of "explosives" :D

Pampering Myself
Bought a game for myself... been sometime since I last played game but then laid my eyes earlier this year on a game which I wanted quite badly... I tend to be a fan of simulation games and this game, The Movies, allows you to run your own movie studio and even shoot your own movie... Cool!

Message from "Friend who was beginning to hate me"
This evening, I suddenly received a message from the "friend who was beginning to hate me", wishing me merry christmas... quite unexpected I must say. I, of course, responded as well.

Getting Fatter (AGAIN)!

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Nothing much really these 2 days...

27 Dec:
Celebrated my friend's birthday today with his girlfriend. He treated us to Swensens, yum yum and later adjourned to Jalan Kayu for prata. Oh no, I am really getting fatter... can feel it... feel bloated again. Looks like I only managed to slim down for a short while... must be the chocolates I have been having recently...

Later in the evening, we stopped by at Marina Country Club to just enjoy the night view of Malaysia from the Dock...

Graphics from www.marinacountryclub.com.sg

There is still so much news coverage on the NKF saga and the more I read about it, the angrier I got! The saga is really getting more and more ridiculous!

Tonight, I also managed to get in touch with my cell group leader to share about my experience at the cult last week... realized that on one hand I will not go back again but I also am not comfortable leaving my friends there, continued to be misled... but I do not know what to do.

28 Dec:
There is really nothing much to do at work these few days... must be the year end and since everyone is away on holiday, I also have less "business"... was also a bit lazy and since I have finished all my urgent work... I kinda just did my work at a slow slow pace.

As the year comes to an end and as I left office for the day, I can't help but really thank God for bringing me back into His "cover" and protection... I am really so glad to be placed to work here, serving in ministry and doing God's work and meeting nice and genuine people, both staff and volunteers. And being in the volunteer management line, I also get to see positive things day-after-day... how volunteers so dedicatedly offer their services to the needy amidst their busy schedule.

That's it! Think I really need a bip, hahaha. I just seem to be able to dirty my short so easily when I am eating and I done it again today! No wonder my friends jokingly mentioned that they will get me a bip for my birthday but since they can't find one my size, they will buy me an apron :)

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

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Our Concert
Woah! Today is public holiday so we went to sing to our hearts' content at KTV today... met my friends and sang all the way from 2pm till 7pm, hahaha a whole 5 hours karaoke marathon... realized that I tend to do better with some songs by 杜德伟, 苏永康, 品冠 and 光良. OK will "whack" these songs next time I go karaoking... :)

Asian Tsunami Disaster Anniversary
It has been a year. Last year this time... many panicked for their lives, many lost their loved ones, many died and many survived to tell their stories but will never see life in the same way again... One year on, I grieve for these people and sincerely pray for no more disasters...

Death Sentence
My friends and I adjourned to Coffee Bean Bishan KTV and one of my friends was sharing about how they kill lab mice for experiments... I must say that some of the methods are real gruesome and I won't go into detail here... I was quite traumatized by what was shared and was also shocked that my friend was doing this for his work... I can't help but feel for these little lab mices. Yes, I know that they are dying for the sake of science so that many others can live... but they are God's little creation as well right?

Blog Makeover
Made little changes to my blog... wanted the Christmasy kinda feeling so added the snowing effect... if you see carefully, you will see snow flakes floating down... I did not put too many just in case it starts to become irritating... Anyway, I am trying to emulate snowing, not a snow storm :)

I have also added a dropdown list so that visitors can easily get access to specific blog entries using the drop-down list instead of struggling with long lists of links... There are 2 drop-down lists on the right... one links to blog entries on my observation of life while the other chronicles my spiritual growth.

Gifts from Above

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"O, come let us adore him, O' come let us adore him"

The Most Valuable Gift
Yup, today is Christ's birthday! My favourite time of the year and this year's Christmas is especially meaningful to me because I have received a wonderful gift from God; my life has been miraculously transformed over just 2 months... I am indeed happier now and takes a more positive view of life. I can't explain this but I am really experiencing much peace and joy nowadays. On this day when God gave us his only son, I also give thanks for this gift of peace and joy from my Heavenly Father.

Wonderful Christmas
Christmas wasn't much joy over the last 2 years because of some problems experienced in a friendship, which has nonetheless ended recently. This year's Christmas, though simple, holds a lot of meaning to me. This Christmas also saw the biggest "harvest", hehehe... received the most gifts this year :) So happy (hahahaha like kid like that).

Meaning of Christmas
Today's Christmas service yet again reminded me of the REAL meaning of Christmas :) I have learnt that God sent his son:

• For salvation and forgiveness for our sins:
  
  John 12:47 ⁴⁷"As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.
  
  
• To give purpose and meaning to life:
  
  John 8:12 ¹²When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
  
  John 10:10 ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
  
  
• To give hope that our names will be found in the Book of Life when we return to Him

Sharing the Joy of Gift
Later in the evening, met with the same gang of friends, who celebrated Christmas together yesterday at the hotel, for a simple dinner at the 24 hours Xinwang Hong Kong Cafe and later, a cuppa coffee at Serangoon Gardens Coffee Bean...

Haha, the "birthday boy" (whose birthday is the day after next) also brought his birthday gift from us, a remote control car, to "play play".

Our birthday gift to our friend; A car!! :)
Photo taken on Coffee Bean wooden table
with a bit of graphic touchup