A Va Tar

It's hot here in Australia. I saw Avatar at IMAX Melbourne today, together with Isaac, Wai Keung and his Mauritian friend, Kaze (well...it's Fung, but it would be cooler in Japanese, kinda like in FFU) Anyway, a movie of visual appeal of this grand a scale deserves to be watched in IMAX. Same ol' predictable storyline? Hello. For a good story, I could get a book. I go to see the boundaries of digital moviemaking stretched and broken, or at least to be entertained.

It was still blazing hot when I walked out of the nice cool theater at 6pm. I was pretty sure at any point in time, people would find their clothing suddenly spontaneous ignite. That would be cool...er...hot.

We ended the city walk by dropping in a little cosy Malaysian cuisine restaurant whose name I conveniently forgot, but I know it was somewhere on Russell street. Haven't been there for like three years. The prawn noodles was okay.

Then Wai Keung fixed my microphone, webcam and guitar. Wee!

Come to think of it, the way we just sat there for three hours just watching the screen made me feel like we were transported into the movie like the heroes into their avatars. Or like the Matrix. The total lack of brain activity that is involved in controlling our real bodies drops to a minimum while our senses are heightened. Hmm... but we all have to wake up someday, right?

I Are Indecisive

I think it's simply weird that I popped into Jason's office and saw him watching the movie 'Fantastic Four'. Before I knew it, I was watching alongside him. In the movie, Reed Richards was always commented as someone who wanted to know all the facts before he made any decision. He was someone who 'always thinking but never acting'.

Then, I read Joyce Meyer's How to succeed at being yourself, and it talks about the exact same person, but he's someone who never realises his potential simply because he's too afraid to make mistakes or does not believe that God's power is made perfect in weakness.

The world IS full of so much unrealised potential that it's pathetic. Ouch.

Makes me stop to think, hey, that's the type of person I am. I don't have big dreams. My dad wants me to get a decent engineering job, any job as long as I work my butt off getting it. I am really into design. Not multimedia, although I'm quite ept (opposite of inept) in it. But the big metallic things you see in plants. I fancy that, but just not sure how to get there.

But more importantly, I had a conversation with the pastor's wife. It goes something like this:
Me: Hi!
PW: Hello, Shaun, how are you?
Me: I'm fine.
(silence)
Me: Trying to think of a topic to talk about. What's a good topic to talk about? (Aren't I just sucky in conversations?)
PW: I know what we can talk about.
Me: What?
PW: What are you going to be in 5 years time and how are you going to reach it?
Me: Er...I'll get back to you.

It's a valid statement. Where am I going to be, character wise, job wise, ministry wise, partner wise in 5 years time? Instead of enjoying the race, have something to aim for, otherwise I'm just beating the air.

Right now, I should be asking God for big stuff, just like I used to ask for high marks (so when I don't get 'em, at least I have good marks to fall back on), but with faith. Inexperience is not an excuse. It's an opportunity to step out in faith and trust God. Bad experience is not an option. Paul said to leave behind past glories and past hurts and move on to the finish line.

God usually reveals things to me one after another. Last week was about giving from my heart (tithing). Now it's to live up to my potential, or at least unleash it.

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.