Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
it's now the lights
they flicker and shut off by themselves.
and yet they work fine the next day (evidence that bulb ain't blown).
i need either a really good electrician or lots of prayers and "house-cleaning".
sigh..
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
I'm Special
I'm special. In all the world there is nobody like me.
Since the beginning of time, there has never been another person like me. Nobody has my smile, nobody has my eyes, my nose, my hair, my hands, my voice - I'm special.
No one can be found who has my handwriting. Nobody any where has my tastes for food or music or art - no one sees things just as I do.
In all time there's been no one who laughs like me, no one who cries like me and what makes me laugh, or cry will never provoke identical laughter and tears from anybody else ever.
No one reacts to any situation just as I would react. I'm special.
I'm the only one in all of creation who has my set of abilities. Oh there will always be somebody who is better at one of the things that I'm good at, but no one in the universe can reach the quality of my combination of talents, ideas, abilities and feelings.
Like a room full of musical instruments, some may excel along but none can match the symphony sound when all are played together.
Through all eternity no one will ever look, talk, walk, think or do like me. I'm speical, I'm rare and in all rarity there is great value. Because of my rare value I need not attempt to imitate others. I will accept - yes, celebrate - my differences.
I'm special and beginning to realize it is no accident that I'm special. I'm beginning to see that God made me special for a very special purpose.
He must have a job qualified for me that no one else can do as well. Out of all the billions of applicants, only one is qualified, only one has the right combination of what it takes..
That one is me, because, I'm Special.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Went into JB with Alan. lexyiu and Juan on Friday. The scene still lingers in my mind and I'm sure that had I had my camera with me, I would have taken lots of photos.
JB is a place that seems steeped in ramshackle romanticism. The streetsigns, potholed roads and thickly begrimed windowgrilles all speak of the 1960's, just as if the city was arrested in time. One can almost imagine the town in its heyday, mosaic floors still sparkling and porcelain tableware unchipped; marbled table-tops in coffee shops redolent of the aromas of fresh baked bread and home-churned kaya.
Part of the charm of JB is that you never know what might be around the next corner. Scruffy lean-tos with corrugated zinc roofs might neighbor a large, modern-style villa; narrow unkept residential lanes open onto spanking-new hotels. There does not seem to be any concept of 'zoning' here.. Oh well.
Best of all, the sunset. Have rarely had the chance to see one like this in Singapore, what with black clouds en masse in the sky. Somehow, the Sun managed to peek through the drizzle at only 730pm and a rich, slanting yellow light diffused into the car. How unlike the insipid, dull dreary daylight of everyday life. =)
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Who Does What?
The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee."
The husband said, " You are in charge of cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee."
Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides, it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."
Husband replies, "I can't believe that, show me."
So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says.......... "HEBREWS"
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
No spirit of Fear
As some of you might know, I am alone at home nowadays, my parents being overseas till the end of the year. At about 1+ am, as I was preparing to go to sleep, I heard the sound of my main door closing, and then subsequently the toilet door.
I thought it might be due to the wind and so I went out to check. Everything seemed normal.
After I returned to my room, I heard a male voice I had never heard before call my name, "Ming", once.
This really started to freak me out as who on earth would be calling my name at 2am in the morning? The sound seemed to come from the main door but there was no one there. Strangely enough, the first thing that came to my mind was that perhaps something had happened to my parents and I began to pray for their safety.
As I closed and locked my bedroom door, I then heard footsteps pacing back and forth. The sound was similar to someone walking with slippers on and it seemed to be coming from the living room.. A bit difficult for me to hear footsteps from the corridor outside behind 2 closed doors isn't it?
It was about 3+ by now and I was still praying and reading my Bible. I don't know how I managed to get to sleep but eventually I did and woke up this morning with everything in my house seemingly normal.
___________________________________________________________________
Some people called my tale weird, others called it spooky, one of my colleagues actually asked me if it was just a figment of my imagination.
I definitely was not dreaming though, and this has never happened before in this house.
I don't know whether that occurence was natural or supernatural, but I think in both cases I need to be really cautious. For one, if it was some person aware that I was alone at home and trying to 'prey' on me, it would not be wise to stay at home alone, given that I usually stay out quite late.
But whether supernatural or not, I need to seek my Father's guidance on what I should do. God has not given me a spirit of fear but of love, power and a sound mind (thanks Sam for the encouragement) and indeed, rather oddly, I am not afraid. I want to find out the cause of the disturbance and deal with it if I can, or turn it over to a higher authority if I cannot.
Thanks to all those who have heard my tale in my initial moments of shock and gave advice and encouragement. Thanks Juan for helping me take my mind off this and offering to come and help to pray over my house with me.
So if you read this and you are a Christian, do help me pray for my own safety as well as for my parents, and I want to get to the bottom of this.. Hoho. =)
Sunday, December 04, 2005
OZ stories III
Day 9 – Friday 3/12
Made our way back up the coast from
Besides that, in
Next diversion on the road was
Somewhere far far down the road home, we stopped in Pemberton. Pemberton is another blink town that is famous for a 60m tall tree called the Gloucester Tree – famous because it is used as a fire lookout. The tree has spikes hammered into its’ bark which allows people to scale it. Jules did the tree – up and down – in under 15 minutes. My cousin rocks. =) Around the area, for some reason lots of colourful birds gather and we spent such a long time trying to entice them into poses for picture taking.
Finally, we arrived back in Bunbury after a long long drive. Dinner was as good as ever – thick vegetable soup with bread slathered with cheese. And also as much as ever, with enough left over to supply 2 more meals. Heh.
Day 10 – Saturday 4/12
Winery day! Went down to
On the way down, we stopped at Jesters Jaffle Pies to pick up pies for lunch. Their pies are really good and packed full of ingredients. We also stopped in Busselton which has a famous 2km long jetty.. Did not bother to walk along the jetty, just did picture taking. Heh.
In the Margaret River region itself, we visited Happs River (very good, award winning and I like their wines, they also have a gorgeous resident tabby who is so good to pet), Cape Clairault (also rather good but don’t really appeal that much to me), Moss Brothers (also award winning but the normal price wines were too sweet and the good wines were too expensive for kiamsiap ole’ me), Amberley Estate (which has gorgeous grounds and a fairly cheap-by-winery-standards lunch), Lenton Brae (really expensive but with a gorgeous dog named Ben who licks walls.. hmm). I kept on having to go toilet because of all the wine and water I drank.. oops. =P
No time to finish more wineries, even though many others are reputed to be excellent as well. I wanted to visit a cave, the region is karst which means limestone, so there are many very pretty caves. The one we visited was
After
Excitingly, we found a Coles supermarket in Dunsborough that stayed open till 8pm (whoohoo, what a bonanza in this everything-closes-by-5pm country)
Dinner was done by my mum this time round, a change from Aunt Eng Lan’s cooking. They are both very good cooks with differing styles. We had prawns and beef stew, excellent as I was starting to miss Chinese food. Jules entertained us a lot at dinner with his horrible Cantonese pronunciation… erps.
Day 11 – Sunday 4/12
Lazy day as nothing is open in Bunbury on Sunday. Watched Hero on DVD, so ironic that I have to come to
Friday, December 02, 2005
OZ stories II
Day 7 – Wednesday 1/12
Made our way down to
One thing I’m really impressed with about Oz is that the toilets are really clean. I mean like really well-maintained, even the public toilets in the parks and remote beaches come with toilet paper and don’t smell. Speaks a lot about public consciousness here. =)
After all those stops, we made it to Walpole, Nornalup and subsequently the Tree Top Walk at about 3.30pm. The Tree Top Walk goes through the Valley of the Giants, huge karri and tingle trees that can go up to 40-60m in height and have a trunk larger than an MPV. Suay-ly, it started to drizzle when we were up on the top of the Walk, and we had to hurry back to ground level. Really weird, taking out my umbrella on top of the Walk and traipsing down the metal struts looking for all the world like a
On the way from Tree Top Walk to
Elephant Rocks are flat rocks that jut out into the sea; I still can’t figure why “elephant”, but the scenery there is first class. Plenty of small beach trails to explore, jump across the rocks on the seashore, enjoy the cold south winds (that blow off
Day 8 – Thursday 2/12
Big breakfast of steak and ham sandwiches that we had brought down from Bunbury the day before. We went to see all the rest of the Albanian sights we hadn’t yet seen, starting from the Gap and the
Interestingly, the place where the Gap and
After that, we made our way to the Blowholes. They are cracks in the rock where spray is forced up through, but there wasn’t any spectacular blowing as the waves were not big enough, and the wind was in the wrong direction.
Jimmy Newhells harbour was next, a pretty little harbour that was very well sheltered from storms. Then
Sandalwood Factory was next, some out-of-the-way out-of-the-world place that sells emu oil (yuck I don’t even want to think about how they GET the emu oil) and sandalwood stuff. Strange people. My mum and dad seemed very happy with the sandalwoody smell and bought heaps of stuff.
Also went up
Thursday is supposed to be late night shopping, but by the time we got back to