September Bible Conference

Wow, it's looks like fun! Yes, because it's the last day of the SHINE conference and verybody's celebrating the 19th anniversary of Hope Christian Church Melbourne.

Lunch is absolutely the best! Salmon and spinach, risotto, pizzas, soft cheese the type you normally eat with biscuits, calamari rings, birthday cake (2 of them available in case one not enough), and good old sugar-enhanced, artificially-oranged fluid.

Wow, I'm starting to enjoy drawing again. Could be because tomorrow onwards I'll be swept away in the tide of business. gulp gulp

Anyways, have fun locating these people whom I have drawn. Yi Mei, Calvin Woon, Kien, Jean Marc, Roy Boon, Yu Wan, Sin Yee, Jill Koh and Sam Rawson. And Rebekah, the little girl who laughs when you get hurt. (In case you didn't notice, the dude with the funky hairdo and giant lollipop is me)

Shine Bible Conference

Ah... good to get my flash working again. This is me at our church's annual Bible conference. The topic is SHINE! And really, the whole session is getting us to once again seek God's glory is a world where it is supposedly diminished, and that the church is nothing without God's glory. And how we are supposed to be reflectors of God's glory.

Wow!~ Short testimony, as I was writing, the computer froze. Now, this doesn't normally happen, and when it does, I am forced to force shutdown my computer. I was like, Argh, God, why did it freeze, when it came to me that this could be the devil's work. I then tried praying, really believing this time, that God can be the God of the internet and computers and he is in control. Argh, I don't want to type everything again, Lord, the devil's trying to stop me from saying good things about you, in Jesus' name, then I sat down and played 'Days of Elijah' on my guitar. And praise the Lord, the computer unfroze. Woohoo!

Ok, many fun things happened as well. I got to participate in a trivia quiz. I guessed my category right, under science. Wahoo! I wished they asked more sciencey questions. Oh, and btw, my group lost 10 to 100. I was pretty sure Antartica was the second largest continent in the world. Doi!

I guessed I was pretty enthusiastic about seeing God's glory, the way the Israelites did in the past. It was both refreshing and stimulating. I hope to retain most of what I've learned from the conference. here are some things I've learned (dumbed down):

1. Knowledge is good, especially God's knowledge. Must have more...
2. True obedience is not just from love, it's from faith. Not a religious, non-free will-y, spiritual understanding of God, but trusting God in a relationship. After all, God created a relationship such that it only works when both parties are faithful.
3. Righteousness cannot be acted out, but can only be achieved through Jesus and accepting the fact that he died for my sins and I am made righteous.
4. Must respect divine authority, 'cos they are the Lord's representatives
5. Church must be united, in fact, churches must be united! We've a lot of nasty stuff inside the church now and Jesus' parable of the wheat and weeds makes that so clear. (Matt13:24-30) When it says in v41, The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. Now, I normally study the bible myself, and from what I understand, i actually see this as the church. Ok, sidetracked...
6. I can be victorious, and this is especially important to me, because I'm usually very depressed and very anxious about life. But so long, as I know my hope is in God, that doesn't matter anymore. Sin is my biggest enemy, it kills, and it's not just murder and stealing. It can be what I think in my head about my sister. My sister! Argh! Get out. Makes me want to cry out as the tax collector, 'I am a sinner'.

And there's still many more things I learned. Gosh, thank you Lord for the experience today and yesterday. Oh, and thank you for the dinner with my life group members as well at Nyonya Hut. I'll do better in my event planning next time.

I think it's funny how the pastors encourage people (mature ones who are getting in their late twenties) to marry, unlike Paul who saw marriage as a trouble. hee hee

Ok, better stop in case something bad happens to me long message.

Nights.

Zed Zed Zed

Late Night Post

Roarhaogh...

I'm surprised I'm still up and running.

Basically, I just tested my KFC craft for Father's Day and it works. Pop-up castle. Woohoo! And now I'm teaching the preppies and Year 1. Oh, they are so adorable with their short attention spans and constant fidgeting. No, seriously, I enjoy teaching them...at least I begin tomorrow. But I'm pretty sure my mum knows what I'll be going through. She teaches big kids by the way, kids my age. She's a lecturer.

Design project is eating up most of my time. I just turn my head and look at other groups. Oh woe, they have finished their ultrafiltration calculations, another woe, one group has set up a Yahoo! group and are well organised in sharing the information. As for my group, we haven't even started on the energy balances yet! I just just spent two hours just calculating how much air needs to go in a spray dryer!

Seriously, I may have to rely on good ol' scaling up, 'cos there's no way Jose I'm gonna produce a report that stands out, but only one that makes the avergae mark...I hope my group doesn't settle for a pass...but I'm gonna keep praying on behalf of my group...wel, that is if I don't straight away go to sleep at 4am in the morning.

Yes dad, I still haven't started looking for jobs or applying for Masters. Stella's words has so changed my priorities. Well, I'm still adamant on going for a Masters, like it or love it or not. By October 31, I can still turn down the Masters scholarship if I get a job (Now why in tarnation would I do that for?) That would make my third scholarship I have turned down in my entire life...Gosh, I'm smart. That's what i get for thinking by myself.

Gotta be excited for the kids. Roargh!

A Typical Sunday

Today was fun.

Today we woke up at 6am because there was no setup last night because the hall was being used so we had to come on sunday morning to setup and so i woke up early.

Today we had Power Praise Party for Kids for Christ (KFC) where we got to see the children share what God has told them. We gave them papers and pens to draw out what God has shown them. Isabelle, lil' kinder girl, drew a sun, flowers, and a 'person that looked like me'. Everyone else thought it was cute, except I was too busy figuring out what it meant. Eleanor said it was a picture of heaven. Interesting.

Today we had picnic lunch. As always, my cookies were gone before I had a chance to eat them, even though this week I cooked 50% more. A girl who came to church for the first time instantly found me and told me how awesome my cookies were. I always feel it's a bit ironic, because the recipe for the cookies came from the back of a condensed milk tin...

Today we had Christian Development School (CDS). I missed out the first part because I had to drive people home. Lynette wore her Astro Girl boots. That made her taller than Zepeng. Zepeng wasn't pleased. Pastor Ian talked about God's plan for the ages right from the creation and the role of Israel.

Today we went shopping for the second time. Jill needed to buy stuff to make her onde-onde for multicultural festival on Monday onwards. Jean Marc tagged along. I had to hunting for pandan essence in Clayton. It was mildly exciting.

Today we made onde-onde. I brought Chyi along. Joab came and produced some balls and left. We ate pasta with 4 day old carbonara sauce, one day old chicken and 2 day old veg. Yum. At least the wanton and ikan bilis soup was fresh, together with my 'reject' onde-ondes, which I happily scrumped.

Today we had impromtu group shepherding. My sheep decided to teach my other sheep. The topic was Responsibilities of a Christian. I may have to have group instead of individual shepherding for this week.

Today we are not amused. I had not done any studying or homework at all. I should be worried.

Tomorrow shall be fun too.

New Phone Blues

Shaun: Hey, blog!
Blog: Hey, Shaun! Haven't seen you in a long while.
Shaun: Yeah, maybe that's because I'm using my laptop without the webcam, hence there wouldn't be any visual input devices for you to 'see' me.
Blog: Yeah, yeah. So what's new?
Shaun: Oh, nothing much. I got a new phone.
Blog: Oh really? It's about time.
Shaun: What do you mean?
Blog: Hasn't everyone been bugging you get get a new one?
Shaun: Yeah, Joab is the worst of them all.
Blog: We should really get to 'sabor'ing him. You have been putting it off way too long.
Shaun: Shush, blog. All in due time.
Blog: Anyways, hopefully Sophie can stop complaining of her missed calls not being registered on your phone.
Shaun: Yeah, don't know where they have gone all this while. I'll miss those jellybean flavoured morsels.
Blog: Sorry?
Shaun: Er...forget what I said.
Blog: Yeah, and it's about time those complaints of you not picking up your phone stopped. Like a new phone is going to help that.
Shaun: Sure it will, this one can run for 18 days without charging. No more 'sorry my phone ran out of batteries' excuses. Isn't that cool?
Blog: Just remember to check your phone.
Shaun: That too!
Blog: And not to mention those signs...
Shaun: What signs?
Blog: Oh, you know. Your Sony Ericsson k610i breaking down, you borrowing Joab's phone and it being an unreliable piece of junk...
Shaun: Did I say that?
Blog: Yes you did.
Shaun: No, I didn't. Not before today.
Blog: Really? Oh well, and then your phone, or technically, Joab's unreliable piece of junk phone, went missing. That was definitely a sign you should change your phone.
Shaun: Why do you keep calling it that? Anyway, it's because of the ringtone that I found it stuffed inside the sofa.
Blog: Everyone hates your ringtone.
Shaun: What?! You too?
Blog: Why do you have to make it so annoying?
Shaun: I just recorded myself singing. Does that automatically make it annoying? Anyway, the principle is that if it's so annoying you can't ignore it, I'll answer it straight away.
Blog: Uh oh, that means...
Shaun: I'll do the same with my new phone.
Blog: By the way, what phone did you get?
Shaun: The Nokia E63.
Blog: What? I thought you had something against Nokia phones.
Shaun: Meh, this one has a 3.5 mm audio jack and flashlight.
Blog: But compared to the E71 it was ripped off from, it has a lousier camera, no sleek metal body, no GPS, no HDSPA, no volume and camera buttons, no leather pouch, no extra memory card...
Shaun: Didn't you hear me? I said it had a 3.5 mm audio jack and a flashlight.
Blog: Oh fine...
Shaun: But it was a pity they didn't have blue.
Blog: They stopped manufacturing that eons ago.
Shaun: But I wanted blue. Now I'm blue.
Blog: New phone blues because of no blue phone. Hmm... catchy. I might make a song.
Shaun: Anyways, since I'm always on hiatus...
Blog: Like, forever.
Shaun: Shutz. Because of that, you can put this conversation we had on the Chronicles of the Unknown Warrior. I'm putting you in charge while I'm in hiatus.
Blog: Ok (slavedriver) so no drawings while you're away?
Shaun: Sadly, no. 'cos I lost my Flash installation disk to install on the VAIO.
Blog: Pity.
Shaun: Since I'm so lazy to write, you can just put whatever we talk about on the chronicles.
Blog: Will do (lazybum)
Shaun: Okay, need to go, my banana is boiling.
Blog: That sounded so wrong.

And there you have it, the conversation we had over Shaun's new phone, recorded faithfully in every single detail. Hopefully my writing is coherent enough for humans like yourself.

And by the way, I still think Joab's phone is an unreliable piece of junk.

Shaman King Nostalgia

Recently, I've been reading Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King from the very beginning. Apparently, the final chapters of KangZengBang has come out, thus properly ending the story which prematurely ended 10 years ago.

Shaman King used to be my favourite comic, way before I even heard of One Piece, Bleach, and Naruto. Out of the three, I thought Shaman King's artwork was better and more solid. Bleach was too realistic and sketchy for my taste. Naruto is okay. One Piece has unbounded energy. So you can pretty much guess my second, third and fourth favs.

What's more, I was reading Shaman King in the old days in chinese. Now reading it in English, it's as if I'm reading a new story, new pieces of information now make the story make more sense.

And pretty much all the mediums and oversouls and powers in Shaman King captured my imagination. I also played two Shaman King games, the first being my fav but unfortunately it's in Japanese so I can't unlock Yoh's third oversoul. Stupid cavern of trials...

At chapter 45 now...will have plenty to read until chapters 300.

One of the artworks that inspired me to draw...still have those sketches in my book. Man, I was such a noob.